Question on water heater PVC discharge pipe

[Jason Garrison]

I have read through the article posted but not sure how to proceed: TPR Valves and Discharge Piping - InterNACHI

We have an older house (built 1977) with a gas water heater located inside a raised cabinet in a two-car garage. Looking at the TPR valve, there is flexible copper pipe connecting one end of the TPR valve and the other end is connected to regular SCH40 PVC. The flex pipe was connected to a threaded connector with piping hidden behind drywall. I actually had to open the drywall to determine the piping type. Everything I have been reading indicates it should be connected to CPVC but the issue I have is that the existing PVC drops straight down and then 90 degrees outside the span of the garage so I cannot access all of the PVC piping to replace it.

Was is the proper way to resolve this? The length of the flexible copper pipe is roughly two feet.

/EDIT

Doing a little more searching, the post in this thread (http://www.inspectionnews.net/home_i...tml#post191809) appears to be a solution. I didn't think I could drain directly into the garage and would like to be able to drain to outside. Can I then do a copper pipe w/6" gap into a collector that feeds the existing PVC piping to the outside?

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[wayne soper]

the termination of the pipe should be in a visible area so you can see that there is a problem if there is one.
my choice woule be to terminate at the garage floor where it wold be very obvious if there was a problem.
if it drips, there is either a pressure problem in the tank or the tpr valve is bad.
either one if left undetected or not repaired could cause a major explosion or the unit.
extend a copper pipe from a new tpr valve down through the cabinet to within 6 " of the floor, supporting it to the wall with pipe straps.
and look at it when you get in your car every day.
if you test the valve by pulling the test lever, the valve will likely start to drip, so don't screw with it.

[Jason Garrison]

Thanks for the tips Wayne. Sounds like I just need to remove the flex pipe from the existing TPR valve, replace it with non-flexible copper pipe terminating no less than 6" from the garage floor existing the cabinet to the garage. Just to be clear, if there were an issue and the TPR valve was activated, it would dump the water directly into the garage as I have no floor drain anywhere.