Hello: I'm unclear on the situation, but you want to open a valve downstream of the heater to keep pressure from building up in the heater. It should be a hot water tap, separate if possible. That's better than a single lever type faucet for this purpose. Does that clarify... or muddy?
yup.. i understood that i needed to open a downstream valve to release the pressure..
summary of the options i've tried:
1) with a downstream valve closed, and the tank's cold water intake open, I get leaks at the heater. (this is obviously the normal setup).
2) with a downstream valve open, and the tank's cold water intake closed, the leaks have dried up, but the downstream valve drips about ~2.4 gal/hr.
this leads me to believe (based on previous posts) that the cold water intake doesn't really close all the way.
3) with a downstream valve closed, and the cold water intake closed, the leaks have dried up.
so, for now i'm leaving this in option 3, since previous posts say this is not dangerous... for whatever reason, the pressure doesn't seem to be building back up.
