Howdy, First off, I recently did a little bit of plumbing (hooked up an icemaker and replaced an external hose outlet) and these forums were immensly helpful for info on sweating pipes, what connections to use, etc. Thank you. Now, to my question. I have an old water heater (Montgomery Ward, late '70s-early '80s) which is gas and 30 gallons. It isn't leaking or making any noise or anything, but I know I should probably replace it anyways. I will put in either a 40 or 50 gallon model. My house (built in 1948) was originally plumbed with galvanized, but some 20 years ago or so it was replumbed with copper. The main line into the house is 3/4" but it before it goes to any fixtures, it reduces down to 1/2". So, essentially, my whole home is supplied with 1/2" copper (it only has one bathroom, so this maybe isn't too big of a deal). This also means that my water heater is supplied with 1/2" and the hot water lines are all 1/2". Well, kind of... The only part of the galvanized piping that wasn't replaced was the bit supplying the water heater (the house is concrete block and the old galvanized lines to the heater were laid within these and I think that whoever replumed didn't want to deal with replacing these). So, if you can imagine this, going into my water heater, I have 1/2" copper connected to 3/4" galvanized, and from my water heater, I have 3/4" galvanized connecting to 1/2" copper. So I am going to replace - or more correctly, bypass - the galvanized lines with copper (the galvanized lines have started to leak in a few places, and though I have patched the leaks, the pipes really worry me). The question is, since all the supply lines are 1/2", should I use this size pipe for the supply lines? This seems to be the logically correct answer, but I know that the UPC (which my area follows for the most part) requires that supplies to water heaters are 3/4". There is no way I am tee-ing off the 3/4" line and extending it to the water heater (at least at this point), but maybe I am supposed to put 3/4" lines "surrounding" the heater (similar to what the galvanized ones are doing right now), perhaps so that a 3/4" extension to the heater will be easier in the future. Any help on this will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

I couldn't find anything in the Mansfield website to explain how to disassemble the sillcock. I stripped the threads on my packing nut and a fifteen minute job turned into a four hour project. Mansfield makes a good kit for 300 or 500 series. I found it at a Do It Best hardware store. The kit contains all parts for any rebuild and you throw away unused parts. I needed a magnifying glass to read the tiny illustrations on the back of the parts kit. Unscrew the knob and remove it. Look all around the outside of the outlet spout for a letter L cast in. If you see the L or see a slot across the face of the exposed white nylon nut, you have a left hand thread, so turn the white nut clockwise to remove it. Screw the knob back on the shaft in order to turn the shaft counter-clockwise until the shaft will slide out of the faucet. Unscrew the knob from the shaft again. Study the information on the back of the package and decide which series valve you have. Replace series-appropriate components at both ends of the shaft, according to the illustrations on the package. For me, that stopped most of the leak. Mansfield says if you still have a drip out the outlet spout, call their customer service during business hours, to rent a refurbishing tool, but they don't give a customer service number for what they call "wall hydrants". That will be today's adventure.