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[juddspaintballs]

The best place I could find a price on the Watts 120-160 degree tempering valve was Anderson's Outdoor at $40.  They're $65-$70 anywhere else.  I have kids, so I decided a tempering valve was a good idea with the sidearm heat exchanger. 

[Sloppy_Snood]

Looks good Judds!  I'm ignorant but what's up with the flexible metal tubing connections?  I have personally not seen that arrangement before.  Trying to avoid short radius copper elbows??

[juddspaintballs]

Sheer convenience.  They're typically sold near the water heaters in the box stores.  Sometimes they're copper, sometimes they're stainless, and sometimes they're braided stainless.  They're about as easy as Shark Bites for connecting pipes and they allow for various height and inlet/outlet configurations between brands and models of water heaters without having to do some serious plumbing every time the water heater goes south. 

[mlappin]

In some places as well I believe flexible connectors might be required, think California with its earthquakes.

[Sloppy_Snood]

In some places as well I believe flexible connectors might be required, think California with its earthquakes.

Prolly has to be lead free and manufactured in a zero emissions manufacturing plant in order to not disturb the annual river migration of the endangered albino cave fish. 

[mlappin]

For my snow melt I used one that had built in unions for easy replacement, but yours looks as easy to maintain as it looks like the cartridge is removable for replacement or cleaning?

[juddspaintballs]

I believe it all comes out the end.  If I have to replace the water heater eventually, I'll need to do some cutting and resoldering.  I should have used a union off of the brass tee.  Oh well...