After I put in the new water heater, I went back the next day, and the new one was the same way! I was putting in the last pieces of pipe insulation, thinking I was done when I saw the water. I was stunned. I didn't get electrically shocked, but I was certainly emotionally shocked. Water was coming out of the pressure relief valve on top, probably when they took a shower. I called my dad and asked him, and he had never heard of such a thing. I called the tech support line, who just put me on hold forever. I read the troubleshooting guide in the manual, and it said, "this is a serious problem which must be corrected immediately. Call your plumbing contractor at once."
Great. That's me. I started reading about it, and apparently the correct fix is to plumb an expansion tank into the cold water side of the heater, because water heaters will push water back into the line when pressure builds up. The plumbing at this trailer had been re-done long ago by someone who was an obvious novice. The used PVC coming out of the hot water heater instead of CPVC. Even I know better than that.
I ended up just plumbing from the pressure relief valve with 3/4" CPVC and making a little drain pipe stick out the bottom of the siding. Plumbing a drain into the valve is what the instructions say to do anyway, but no one I know ever does it, because the valves don't leak when they are new.
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