So I was reading the reviews of a water heater on home depot and one guy was bitching about having to hacksaw the plastic down to level with the pipes. I was like WTF. Hacksawing on a brand new water heater...
So I go buy one and new hoses and go to install it and with the plastic sleeves in the water heater nipples and the washers in the new hose, the nut on the hose won't reach the threads on the nipples. So I tried the old hoses and they fit so I used them. Took the new braided SS hoses back to HD.
WTF. Why do they put those plastic things in the nipples? Apparently other people have found out that the hoses won't fit either.
When I got the old water heater back home (I was at a somebody else's house doing the install) I noticed one of them looked like it had been hacksawed also. Is that what you're supposed to do? I used to do water heater installs all the time with my dad and never noticed this issue.