Water Heaters - water pours out of flexible copper tube.

I have a gas water heater with no expansion tank. On the cold water inlet is the shut off valve and what I think is a check valve, but I cant tell because its behind the shut off valve. Coming out of what I think is the check valve is the tubing which leads to a drain in the floor. This drain also contains a 3/4" copper pipe connected to the TP relief valve. I placed the tubing in a one gallon empty plastic container and in 45 mins the container was filled with water. Why is there so much water running out and second, am I paying for this?

I'm not exactly sure what the leaking part would be but I'm fairly certain that you are paying for the leakage. I'm sure not. HaHa. If you could put a picture up somewhere, we could tell for sure.

Ken

Here is a pic for you viewing pleasure. What you see is the hot water line out to the left and the cold water line in up close and to the right. The copper tube extends downward and into a 2" piece of pvc that sticks up out of my basement floor. The TP relief valve is not shown. I hope this helps.
http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeycklr/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/.pond/IMG_0706.JPG.w110h83.jpg

I can't see anything on that tiny picture but I'm guessing that what you have is a pressure-only relief valve and it is leaking through the discharge port.

These pressure-only relief valves were sometimes installed to allow for thermal expansion. If this is what you have then I suggest that you remove it and install a proper expansion tank.