I find myself having to replace my water heater. hooray. so when the old water heater was put in, I guess the plumber ran copper pipe straight down to the water heater and soldered it directly to the tank. Now that I am having to replace the heater I thought I would save a little money and try a relatively simple DIY home repair task. The heater is electric and is in the garage in a raised little "closet". When I reinstall it, I would like to try to use some sort of flexible tubing, that way when the next water heater breaks it hopefully won't be such a pain in the ass.
So my question is whether to solder (which I don't know how to do) or use a compression fitting (which I've heard can break) or this new sharkbite stuff which seems to actually work pretty well for pipes that aren't in the wall. I would assume that soldering is the most permanent and reliable but I have been seeing a lot of really good reviews about this sharkbite stuff. Just not really sure which way to go here.
So my question is whether to solder (which I don't know how to do) or use a compression fitting (which I've heard can break) or this new sharkbite stuff which seems to actually work pretty well for pipes that aren't in the wall. I would assume that soldering is the most permanent and reliable but I have been seeing a lot of really good reviews about this sharkbite stuff. Just not really sure which way to go here.