Water Heater Bypass Valve - How To Replace
There are two bypass valves associated with the water heater in my travel trailer. Each fall, when winterizing, I have to turn one from open to closed, and the other from closed to open. In the spri...
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Those rings are one-time-use PEX crimp rings. You'll have to cut them off or otherwise remove them to extract the valve (or cut the PEX beyond the valve and find a longer valve or splice some more tubing in place). The rings are installed with a pliers-like tool that scrunches them around the pipe and fitting.
For replacing a single valve, it probably makes more sense to get a sharkbite or similar valve that doesn't require specialized tools to install rather than replacing with a crimp style.
As to which way the valves go, it depends a bit on where the valves are exactly and how things are set up. If you have a valve in a pipe that goes between the hot and cold water lines in parallel with the heater, that one would definitely be open to bypass and closed to use the heater, and the other one (which I suspect is between the cold water line and the heater) set oppositely. In such a setup there would also be a check valve on the hot water outlet from the heater which you don't need to fiddle with manually.
For replacing a single valve, it probably makes more sense to get a sharkbite or similar valve that doesn't require specialized tools to install rather than replacing with a crimp style.
As to which way the valves go, it depends a bit on where the valves are exactly and how things are set up. If you have a valve in a pipe that goes between the hot and cold water lines in parallel with the heater, that one would definitely be open to bypass and closed to use the heater, and the other one (which I suspect is between the cold water line and the heater) set oppositely. In such a setup there would also be a check valve on the hot water outlet from the heater which you don't need to fiddle with manually.
