The Domestic Water Leak

As I've described in a previous post our water pressure comes from a pump, when water is released from the system via a faucet or a leak the pressure drops and the pump kicks on, when the pressure in the system is built up sufficiently it will kick off. I've known we have a leak for a long time because the pump kicks on momentarily from time to time plus we slowly accumulate water in the bilge. I've looked high and low for the source with no luck until last evening. With the pump short cycling much more often lately and the bilge pump kicking on twice, I pulled the hatches and made the discovery; the cold water inlet to the hot water tank was leaking pretty bad. Okay, the hard part is over (finding the problem) now all I need to do is tighten that sucker and all will be right with the world, another problem solved, I'll feel like a macho man and my wife will be proud of me, right? Wrong, it started leaking a lot worse, damn! So what did I do? I turned off the pump, watched something on television then went to bed. Next morning I had to get this thing fixed, Kim didn't like turning the pump on then off again each time she needed water. Right after my coffee and breakfast I pulled the hatch and removed the cold water inlet line to reveal a plastic nipple protruding from the tank, I was surprised that only a little water ran out. I thought the nipple might be damaged but hoped that it wasn't, so I wrapped Teflon tape around the threads and screwed the water line back on; it leaked just the same. At the time I didn't realize how the nipple was affixed to the tank so I had this vision in my head of how it looked on the inside of the tank and a plan to resolve the problem. I won't go into my vision because, as it turns out, my vision was based entirely on alternative facts (a fashionable term these days). As Kim and I were getting ready to ride bikes to a hardware store one of our new friends, Rod, and his wife were returning to their boat. They recently completed the Great Loop and now live on their beautiful boat here at the marina in the Myrtle Beach area. I asked Rod to take a look at the fitting and I ran my vision and solution by him. Turns out he started off in life as a plumber then moved into plumbing-fittings sales then into management then into company ownership. I could not believe my luck, I could not have found a more qualified person to help. Plus he and his wife are two of the nicest people we've ever met, they loaned us their car yesterday. Anyway, after listening to my vision of the issue and my solution to the problem Rod knew I was no plumber and not much of a handyman, but he never let on. He was amazed someone had installed a plastic nipple and said Teflon tape doesn't work well on plastic, so we applied some pipe dope, hooked her back up and it still leaked; apparently, the plastic nipple was cracked. Now here's where the expertise of my new best friend comes into play, he knew that the nipple simply unscrewed from the tank, something I didn't realize. He also had a wrench to remove the nipple, none of mine fit. In addition, he had a stainless steel “hex long nipple” that he gave me and would not accept payment, just a request that I help the next guy. So, we applied some pipe dope, hooked everything together and after snugging it good and tight we resolved a problem that I could have messed around with for two or three days.