# PEX Plumbing for home system



## Wooden Head (Feb 18, 2019)

I saw a thread where they are talking about using Pex in place of copper. Just looking for some guidance for using pex  and what tools and fittings do you like?


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## Ashful (Feb 18, 2019)

Are you plumbing a new home, add-on, or rework?  I only work in copper, so no help either way, but this will better shape the answers you get from others.


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## Gunfixr (Feb 18, 2019)

I've done some PEX,  in renovation work, not new construction.
I had misgivings, but i'm liking it, having screwed together steel, glued PVC,  and sweated copper in the past. It is by far the easiest.
Get the crimp tool. Around here, $50-$60 iirc, mine does 1/2" and 3/4". Use the solid copper rings (they are blackened) that it crimps, and use the brass fittings. The research I did showed this was the best way to go. The tube cutter is good to have as well, it's cheap.
There is a prep tool that bevels and preps ends, not expensive, but not necessary unless you are using the sharkbite push fittings. Sharkbites are way more expensive, but even faster, and can be disconnected and reconnected. I have a couple of those in use, where the PEX meets copper or steel. There is a ring removal tool, I didn't get one, was just extra careful about not needing to redo any.

There are pinch tight compression rings, and they use a plier type tool. It relies on bent metal to stay tight, as opposed to the crimp ring which is swaged down. I didn't feel comfortable putting that behind walls.


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## peakbagger (Feb 18, 2019)

I have the Uponor Pro Pex system installed on parts of  heating system. The selection of systems 15 years ago were far less than today. A friend had heating and plumbing business and had great success and no failures. There are no crimp rings. I initially borrowed the expensive at the time expanding tool and eventually bought a set. All you do is prep the end of the tube, slide a backing ring over the tube and then expand the tube with the tool. The place where folks can screw up on is the tool has to be rotated 1/4 turn as the tube is expanded, otherside the tool can leave a groove inside the tube. Then just slide the expanded tube over the fitting and its on for good. No issues with wet or dripping pipes. I must admit I do not have it on the piping near my boiler as in certain circumstances I could exceed the 200 deg F max temp rating. 

They have a lot of systems for different fluids. The intriguing one is they make a residential sprinkler system that uses the domestic cold water tubing for distribution. 

Just like copper a drywall screw will go through it so metal shields are needed on 2x4s. It may self seal initially around the screw tip.


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## Seasoned Oak (Feb 18, 2019)

Lots of action in the Sharkbite fittings these days . They are easy to install and require almost no tools but are so very expensive to use in quantity. I generally use regular pex and crimping rings ,but the sharkbite comes in handy in tight places where you cant get the crimper in. I do feel the regular PEX is more reliable however iv never had a failure in the sharkbite fittings. In the pex iv had just one piece of domestic hot water line split  and develop a leak.  I still have all my old copper fittings, pipes and the tools to install them ,just dont use em much anymore.


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## zrock (Feb 18, 2019)

Pex is so easy to work with. you can rent the tools from your local tool place or get them from your local plumbing store. Don't cheap out if you buy them and the cutters are a must for clean cuts. Get yourself a tool that is made for close areas as at some point you will have a spot the normal crimp will not work without alot of cursing. If possible go to a store that deals in nothing but plumbing. We have a andrew sherit here and the price of the fittings is less than 1/2 of the local canadian tire or home hardware huge savings if your doing a large job.. 
Sharkbites are a great thing to use in a really tight area or to retrofit from copper to pex especially if your living in a older trailer. i use these quite a bit and never had a failure. You dont need a special tool to remove just use a adjustable wrench or a wrench the same size as the pipe and push the collar back and they come right off


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## semipro (Feb 18, 2019)

I've worked extensively with PVC, CPVC, copper, and PEX.
My thoughts.
Pex benefits:

easy to work with
fast
inexpensive
no glues
it is a bit flexible so minerals don't adhere well and it is less prone to breakage when frozen  (anecdotal observation)
its flexibility is useful for avoiding fittings on sweeping turns -- especially if you're using the coiled stock
(Edit per Peakbagger's response below) no flame needed, no fire potential
Potential problems:

MIce may chew through it to get water (reportedly)
It degrades in direct sunlight
The coiled stock is sometimes difficult to straighten and work with on longer runs.
Brass fittings can fail if exposed to ammonia from rotting organic matter or other exposure (dezincification).
I like the SS pinch clamps better than the copper rings because:

Stainless steel is much stronger than copper and more corrosion resistant. (860 versus 210 MPa ultimate tensile strength) That said, copper doesn't corrode that fast either but still...

The crimping tool fits better in tight spots which has been a big plus many times

One crimping tool fits most if not all.
They're easily removed without having to resort to cutting
Widely available at big boxes - not so the copper clamps in our area though they used to carry them.
As an auto mechanic for 15 years I never once saw one of the SS clamps fail and was impressed by how hard they were to cut off. They are widely used on medium pressure hydraulic and fuel hoses and other places.
I'll only use a sharkbite quick fitting in a pinch.  They're expensive and I don't like to rely upon some elastomer seal in a slip fit for the long-term.
I use the PEX brass fittings and wouldn't use the plastic fittings.  That said, I've already seen at least one brass fitting failure (perforation) but attribute it to a factory defect.


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## zrock (Feb 18, 2019)

For some reason over here we are not allowed to use the SS pinch clamps anymore. against code


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## vinny11950 (Feb 18, 2019)

When I was doing plumbing in my house a few years ago, I thought of using pex but the amount of work was so small, it was cheaper to keep going with copper.

One thing I did notice, is some of the pex sizes had smaller inside diameter than the copper pipe of the same size.  Something to consider if that matters to you.


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## Easy Livin’ 3000 (Feb 18, 2019)

Copper sucks, rots, is an expensive relic for people with more money than sense.  Like Bronze armor and weapons, in the silicon age.

 I've re-plumbed almost my entire house with pex from the big box stores.  The copper was paper thin and springing pinhole leaks inside the walls and ceilings.

 Used sharkbite when easier, copper rings when possible.  Pros buy both the straight lengths and coils, and use them according to the application.

Wish I'd gone wit the stainless crimping system.


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## zrock (Feb 18, 2019)

vinny11950 said:


> When I was doing plumbing in my house a few years ago, I thought of using pex but the amount of work was so small, it was cheaper to keep going with copper.
> 
> One thing I did notice, is some of the pex sizes had smaller inside diameter than the copper pipe of the same size.  Something to consider if that matters to you.


One thing to remember is pex is perfectly smooth inside copper is not. So their will be less resistance in pex 

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## xman23 (Feb 18, 2019)

It has been used for some time by all the builders here. Cost drives it.  Hope it doesn't end up with the issues they had with PVC used for domestic water lines years ago.


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## Ashful (Feb 18, 2019)

ED 3000 said:


> Copper sucks, rots, is an expensive relic for people with more money than sense.


...or those old enough to have been thru a few of these fads.  Remember butylene piping?  PVC supply side piping?  In a world where building materials change ever decade, it’s amazing how long copper has held on, while many newer systems and come, failed, and gone.  I hope PEX is the (next) final answer, but suspect it’s every bit as likely we’ll be studying newly-discovered cancers created by its wide deployment in DHW systems, 20 years from now.


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## Easy Livin’ 3000 (Feb 18, 2019)

Ashful said:


> ...or those old enough to have been thru a few of these fads.  Remember butylene piping?  PVC supply side piping?  In a world where building materials change ever decade, it’s amazing how long copper has held on, while many newer systems and come, failed, and gone.  I hope PEX is the (next) final answer, but suspect it’s every bit as likely we’ll be studying newly-discovered cancers created by its wide deployment in DHW systems, 20 years from now.


I insist on BPA-free pex.  ;-)

I think we should worry way more about those phenols in your whiskey and beer than the water.  

I put all my drinking water at home through a carbon filter, and I've been suffering from copper pipes my whole life.  I'm a late adopter generally, but I'm willing to take a shot at this fad. 

Plus I can't solder.


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## Ashful (Feb 18, 2019)

ED 3000 said:


> I insist on BPA-free pex.  ;-)
> 
> I think we should worry way more about those phenols in your whiskey and beer than the water.
> 
> ...


I really don't have a strong feeling, one way or the other.  I grew up sweating copper pipes, my grandfather and great-grandfather owned and ran a plumbing business, and my dad was forever renovating old buildings.  So, I'm quick and comfortable with copper, and I've never had any of the issues I've seen from folks who live in areas with acid water and improper electrical grounding.

.... and you leave my whiskey alone!  I'm enjoying an Old Fashioned right now.


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## bholler (Feb 18, 2019)

Ashful said:


> ...or those old enough to have been thru a few of these fads.  Remember butylene piping?  PVC supply side piping?  In a world where building materials change ever decade, it’s amazing how long copper has held on, while many newer systems and come, failed, and gone.  I hope PEX is the (next) final answer, but suspect it’s every bit as likely we’ll be studying newly-discovered cancers created by its wide deployment in DHW systems, 20 years from now.


Pex has been used for a long time in Europe with no problems before it came here.  I just redid our whole house by myself in a weekend.  No way I could do that with copper.  And now I have a manifold which reduces pressure drop when using more than one fixture


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## EatenByLimestone (Feb 19, 2019)

Pex is awesome!   When I replumbed the cabin I did it exclusively with pex due to the ability to withstand freezes.   I still pitched the lines to drain though.   

We redid a friend's cabin and his froze.   All was well.    

When I ran heating lines up to the attic I was finishing off I ran pex lines with an O2 barriermade for heating systems.

As I have to replace the mix of copper and galvanized in my house I generally use pex with copper rings for most of it, then stub on with a sharkbite.  

I can sweat, do pvc, screw stuff together, etc, but when I can do pex, I do.


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## EatenByLimestone (Feb 19, 2019)

Oh, leftover lengths of blue, red, and white pex make great light sabres for kids who like star wars.


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## Wooden Head (Feb 19, 2019)

Ashful said:


> Are you plumbing a new home, add-on, or rework?  I only work in copper, so no help either way, but this will better shape the answers you get from others.


Add n and rework.


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## Dobish (Feb 19, 2019)

i have used pex on remodels and on the new project that we are using. when I did the work myself, I was using the crimp rings and everything went pretty well. I got a removal tool, as there were a few times when I put on temporary fittings, etc. 

The new project was all done by a plumber, but we ran an 1.25" pex line for our new water line and sprinkler line. They also insulated lines and buried them under the floor prior to pouring the concrete to run to my peninsula and my washer. The sprinklers all feed off of the cold water, as to the rest of the fixtures.  






they used Wirsbo Pex and connectors which seem a bit more solid, and copper stub outs.


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## Ashful (Feb 19, 2019)

Dobish said:


> I got a removal tool, as there were a few times when I put on temporary fittings, etc.


Actually, this would be a huge advantage for the DIY'er.  The ability to temporarily stitch the system together so the family can get showers in the middle of a weekend-long re-plumbing job, should not be under-rated.


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## peakbagger (Feb 20, 2019)

Keep in mind, lead solder used for sweating copper fittings on potable water for many years is a source of long term lead poisoning in older homes. 

The big advantage to me is heat is not needed to make the joint. It happens frequently, usually on older construction, that fires are started by plumbers torches. I run into on commercial construction all the time, that if a torch needs to be lit there has to be a paid fire watch during and for several hours afterwards. Most of my new commericial jobs use pex on the small stuff, thinwall Propress on the intermediate sizes and Victaulic grooved piping on the big stuff. Victaulic just recently came out with a grooved system that handles low pressure steam. The fittings are usually more expensive but skilled labor is far less and most of the systems have built in quality control marks and stops to assure that the joints are made up correctly.


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## semipro (Feb 20, 2019)

Ashful said:


> Actually, this would be a huge advantage for the DIY'er.  The ability to temporarily stitch the system together so the family can get showers in the middle of a weekend-long re-plumbing job, should not be under-rated.


Totally agree, and an advantage I've taken numerous times, sometimes with comedic results. 
On a recent weekend I found out how much water can flow out of a 1/2" PEX at 80 PSI after mistakenly closing the wrong supply circuit. Me, now soaking wet on a ladder trying to stem the flow while yelling for my wife before finally deciding to abandon the leak and go and shut off the main. 

The heat issue that Peakbagger mentions reminds me of how much time I used to spend waiting for a line to drain before I could heat it for soldering. I was never crazy about the whole plugging the pipe with white bread trick.  Who eats white bread anymore anyway?


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## peakbagger (Feb 20, 2019)

I worked in the Midwest in "Americas Dairyland"  early in my career at a papermill that used mostly thin wall stainless steel pipe. Most of the welders also did work for dairy farms which uses similar piping (but different fittings). When tigging thin wall stainless,  the pipe is supposed to be backpurged with inert gas and the dairy guys used day old bread to plug the line. This was 3" to 12" pipe so they used a lot of bread. 

I have been stymied plenty of times in my industrial career with a crew sitting around waiting to get at a line that was dripping so it could be welded. If the pipe was big enough we would sometimes have to weld a coupling on a low spot on in the direction the water was coming from. Once the coupling was welded on then they would blow a hole into the pipe through the coupling and let it drain while the flow hopefully stopped out of where we were trying to weld. When done they would screw a plug into the coupling. On the really big lines we sometimes had to resort to an inflatable pig stuffed up the line to block the flow. 

By the way, for awhile there was a copper pipe joining system that used some sort of epoxy or polyurethane glue to glue copper pipes together. I think it used the same fittings.


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## Dobish (Feb 21, 2019)

semipro said:


> Totally agree, and an advantage I've taken numerous times, sometimes with comedic results.
> On a recent weekend I found out how much water can flow out of a 1/2" PEX at 80 PSI after mistakenly closing the wrong supply circuit. Me, now soaking wet on a ladder trying to stem the flow while yelling for my wife before finally deciding to abandon the leak and go and shut off the main.
> 
> The heat issue that Peakbagger mentions reminds me of how much time I used to spend waiting for a line to drain before I could heat it for soldering. I was never crazy about the whole plugging the pipe with white bread trick.  Who eats white bread anymore anyway?



there is a reason I have a manifold of all my shutoff valves in one spot, in addition to at the fixtures:





I also have it set up so I have a shutoff above my hose connections, and a drain below, so I can shut them off and drain them if need be. This has come in handy a few times!


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## semipro (Feb 21, 2019)

Dobish said:


> there is a reason I have a manifold of all my shutoff valves in one spot, in addition to at the fixtures:
> View attachment 241219
> 
> 
> I also have it set up so I have a shutoff above my hose connections, and a drain below, so I can shut them off and drain them if need be. This has come in handy a few times!


Nice setup.  My system is not nearly as neat as I tried to reuse as much of my old copper stuff as I could after relocating our well tank and water heater.


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## Wooden Head (Feb 23, 2019)

Thank You everybody for the great information.


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## zrock (Feb 23, 2019)

Dobish said:


> there is a reason I have a manifold of all my shutoff valves in one spot, in addition to at the fixtures:
> View attachment 241219
> 
> 
> I also have it set up so I have a shutoff above my hose connections, and a drain below, so I can shut them off and drain them if need be. This has come in handy a few times!


What is that grey box with the 3 electrical lines running to it?


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## Dobish (Feb 23, 2019)

zrock said:


> What is that grey box with the 3 electrical lines running to it?


My water heater.  On demand electric.


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## zrock (Feb 23, 2019)

That's some serious power going in..

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## Hogwildz (Feb 23, 2019)

bholler said:


> Pex has been used for a long time in Europe with no problems before it came here.  I just redid our whole house by myself in a weekend.  No way I could do that with copper.  And now I have a manifold which reduces pressure drop when using more than one fixture


What manifold did you use? Does it have valves?


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## bholler (Feb 23, 2019)

Hogwildz said:


> What manifold did you use? Does it have valves?


Yes it does I don't remember the brand.  I can look when I get home


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## Hogwildz (Feb 23, 2019)

bholler said:


> Yes it does I don't remember the brand.  I can look when I get home


Thanks
Did you run 3/4" and then take 1/2" to each appliance?


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## bholler (Feb 23, 2019)

Hogwildz said:


> Thanks
> Did you run 3/4" and then take 1/2" to each appliance?


Yes 3/4 comes to the manifold comes out the bottom to the water heater then back in the bottom.  Everything else is 1/2"


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## Hogwildz (Feb 23, 2019)

bholler said:


> Yes 3/4 comes to the manifold comes out the bottom to the water heater then back in the bottom.  Everything else is 1/2"


All home runs, or did you run trunks?


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## bholler (Feb 23, 2019)

Hogwildz said:


> All home runs, or did you run trunks?


Amost all home runs.  I ran the toilets off the cold to the bathroom sinks everything else is home run


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## Hogwildz (Feb 23, 2019)

bholler said:


> Amost all home runs.  I ran the toilets off the cold to the bathroom sinks everything else is home run


That's exactly what I have in mind. Is there much if any pressure drop if toilet is flushed during shower?


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## Hogwildz (Feb 23, 2019)

bholler said:


> Amost all home runs.  I ran the toilets off the cold to the bathroom sinks everything else is home run


That's exactly what I have in mind. Is there much if any pressure drop if toilet is flushed during shower?


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## Dobish (Feb 23, 2019)

Hogwildz said:


> That's exactly what I have in mind. Is there much if any pressure drop if toilet is flushed during shower?


We have basically the same setup,  with the manifold.  Toilets are not noticeable for us.


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## bholler (Feb 23, 2019)

Hogwildz said:


> That's exactly what I have in mind. Is there much if any pressure drop if toilet is flushed during shower?


Nope not much at all.  With a pressure balancing shower valve you don't notice it at all.


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## Hogwildz (Feb 23, 2019)

Thanks gentlemen. It's on the long list of projects to be done...


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## vinny11950 (Feb 25, 2019)

Dobish said:


> there is a reason I have a manifold of all my shutoff valves in one spot, in addition to at the fixtures:
> View attachment 241219
> 
> 
> I also have it set up so I have a shutoff above my hose connections, and a drain below, so I can shut them off and drain them if need be. This has come in handy a few times!



Looks like the Tempra Plus 24?  I have one in my house.  I keep the temperature at 110, and it does fine.  Almost 9 years old now.


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## Dobish (Feb 25, 2019)

vinny11950 said:


> Looks like the Tempra Plus 24?  I have one in my house.  I keep the temperature at 110, and it does fine.  Almost 9 years old now.


Yeah,  they have changed names a few times.  This was an aquapower 24 DHE, with the internal regulator to control output at constant temp.  We are going on 4 years,  set at 123°.

We had a manifold by some European company,  but it didn't come with the fittings,  so we made our own with the copper.


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## bholler (Feb 25, 2019)

Mine is a view manabloc.


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## Dobish (Feb 25, 2019)

bholler said:


> Mine is a view manabloc.
> View attachment 241422


that was the same one that I originally had. I made the mistake of not ordering the inlet fittings, and also was not a huge fan of the plastic threads. Our water is pretty hard, and manages to eat away at everything faster than I would like. 

I also really liked having a big shut off handle for each valve.


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## bholler (Feb 25, 2019)

Dobish said:


> that was the same one that I originally had. I made the mistake of not ordering the inlet fittings, and also was not a huge fan of the plastic threads. Our water is pretty hard, and manages to eat away at everything faster than I would like.
> 
> I also really liked having a big shut off handle for each valve.


I have installed 15 or 20 of them over the past 8 or 9 years with no problems.  And honestly the plastic should hold up better than metal to bad water


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## Dobish (Feb 25, 2019)

bholler said:


> I have installed 15 or 20 of them over the past 8 or 9 years with no problems.  And honestly the plastic should hold up better than metal to bad water



it probably should, I just find that everything in my house that is plastic with our water has to be replaced more frequently. I went 15 years without ever having to replace a toilet flange, but when I moved to golden, it was every 3 years.

maybe they are using all of the good water for coors.... :D


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## Ashful (Feb 25, 2019)

bholler said:


> I have installed 15 or 20 of them over the past 8 or 9 years with no problems.  And honestly the plastic should hold up better than metal to bad water


Call me in 70 years, we'll see how it's doing next to my brass and copper, much of which is already 30+ years old.


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## EatenByLimestone (Feb 25, 2019)

Pffft, we won't be using phones in 70 years!    Telepathy!


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## bholler (Feb 25, 2019)

Ashful said:


> Call me in 70 years, we'll see how it's doing next to my brass and copper, much of which is already 30+ years old.


It will be fine.  I tore out a bunch of 30 yr old copper with leaky shutoffs and lots of internal corrosion.


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## Ashful (Feb 25, 2019)

bholler said:


> It will be fine.  I tore out a bunch of 30 yr old copper with leaky shutoffs and lots of internal corrosion.



... and you’re DRINKING the water that did that to your plumbing?!?


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## bholler (Feb 25, 2019)

Ashful said:


> ... and you’re DRINKING the water that did that to your plumbing?!?


Yes and I had it tested it is a little hard and it is high in iron and manganese.  Both of which are removed mostly with the treatment system.  The copper in our last house was in similar condition.  It was fine as long as you didn't have to use a shutoff or do anything to it as soon as you did you spent a week chasing leaks in the old stuff.


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## Hogwildz (Mar 2, 2019)

bholler said:


> Yes and I had it tested it is a little hard and it is high in iron and manganese.  Both of which are removed mostly with the treatment system.  The copper in our last house was in similar condition.  It was fine as long as you didn't have to use a shutoff or do anything to it as soon as you did you spent a week chasing leaks in the old stuff.


Remember those days well. In my last place, the minute I touched on of those old spin valves, I knew it would drip or worse. Had to replace a few, and was not much fun. PVC in this place, until I swap to Pex.


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## EatenByLimestone (Mar 3, 2019)

I remember fixing a leak in the galvanized plumbing in my Grandfather's house with my father one late, Sunday night.  Every joint we touched opened a new leak further up the line.   We were worried Lowe's would close before we took care of all the leaks.  I think we got it fixed in time, but barely.


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## Don2222 (Mar 4, 2019)

Hi
I used blue & red Pexies with sharkies out in the open and they will last a long time. We put in an ECO Smartie On Demand DHW Electric Panel and it works well!
The On Demand Panel can pull the water from the street or the Indirect Tank on the boiler. 
Or we can go back to the oil boiler if we wish


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## zrock (Mar 4, 2019)

Only place I had one fail is a ball valve we buried. Frost pulled the connection.. washed it out and put the same valve on and been good for the last few years.. 

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## Ashful (Mar 4, 2019)

All this criticism of brass valves, and every PEX system pictured so far has had brass body valves.  [emoji3]


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## maple1 (Mar 5, 2019)

Where is the brass valve criticism?

I think I saw some, of older valves that might happen to be made of brass. Which I think I also have some of around our house & also all around our cottage - I hate having to touch them, chances are they will start leaking out the stem & they won't stop. Look like little gate valves. Yuck. But that's the type of valve, not necessarily what they are made of.

Ball valves or bust.


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## EatenByLimestone (Mar 5, 2019)

You can repack valves.  IME it works half the times I've tried it.


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## Ashful (Mar 5, 2019)

maple1 said:


> Where is the brass valve criticism?


Several posts above, the last was Hogz.

I really haven’t had any issues with ball valves or gate valves in any house I’ve owned, with the exception of moving into someone else’s house where they weren’t maintained.  If a packing drips, snug it before you get mineral deposits building up on the shaft.   If you’ve bottomed out the bonnet, close the valve and install a new packing.  The beauty of a gate valve is that it can be fully rebuilt without removing it from the line, and you can repack them without even shutting off anything upstream, unless some idiot installed it backwards.  Most of the inline valves I installed in my own house are ball valves, but I still use gate valves as the drains, I don’t like the ball valve drains.


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## Ashful (Mar 5, 2019)

EatenByLimestone said:


> You can repack valves.  IME it works half the times I've tried it.



Works 100% of the time to fix a leaky bonnet, if the shaft isn’t chewed up or a mess with minerals.  Also, you can replace the bib washer if the valve drips.


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## peakbagger (Mar 5, 2019)

Ball valves have packing and can have stem leaks. I got  big batch of ball valves from Pex Supply long ago for my storage project and they looked like good quality but everyone had a packing leak and the packing box travel is slim to none so repacking them are a chore. If I do need to repack I usually just use standard Teflon tape. I just twist it up until I get reasonable strand and wrap the stem after digging out the old stuff. When I worked at a papermill they had carts full of braided Teflon packing but it was always too big for home work. Packing a stuffing box on a pump is an art and getting the lantern ring in the right place is something some folks have a tough time with. No one wants to replace a shaft seal in the middle of the night so some of packing jobs would get quite creative to buy a few days or weeks until the seal could be swapped out. Household service is pretty easy compared to papermill pumps 

It all comes down to how aggressive the water is and the quality of valve used. A plumber bids the job and unless someone tells him otherwise he is going to use the cheapest valve that he can get away with that wont lead to call backs in the short term. I think globe valves are usually the cheapest and have a reasonable chance of sealing, although the washers do get old and crunchy. I avoid globe valves as the pressure loss through them is high even when full open. Good for throttling but not so great for an isolation valve. Ball valves have more materials and more machining so they are going to be more expensive. Gate valves used to be used but they tended to leak a bit when closed and priced on par with ball valves. Of course the other big plus with ball valves is you know visually when they are open and they are easy to do lock out tag out if you get the sliding clips for the handles.

I grew up in Portland Maine and the water from Sebago Lake was so pure it would eat copper piping and fittings and lead packing in pipes. Hot water heaters did not last last long unless the anodes were changed routinely and most folks don't even know what an anode was. They started adding something to the water to cut down on the corrosiveness and the problems went away. I don't think lead was used extensively for piping but the water would leach the lead out of "leaded brass" fittings. Lead was added to the brass to make it easy to machine but definitely made it more prone to pitting. There was a lot of threaded galvanized used for house supplies and private roads. The galvanized would rot out from the inside and plug the pipe. I helped hand dig a couple of services to replace the galvanized long ago. The water utility got hard on cheap developers and they forced them to install cast or ductile iron lines in streets so the 2" galvanized water mains slowly went away. City water pressure down near the ocean was about 110 psi so leaks were easy to find.

I don't have any experience with hard water and PEX. Long ago I worked in the "paper valley" in Wisconsin and the local water was very hard. We had to routinely acid wash some systems to keep them from plugging.


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## bholler (Mar 5, 2019)

Ashful said:


> All this criticism of brass valves, and every PEX system pictured so far has had brass body valves.  [emoji3]


Yes of course if the valves were maintained properly they will work.  But most are not and on most old systems i have worked on simply changing out a bad valve leads to multiple leaks in that line elswhere


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## maple1 (Mar 6, 2019)

I'm pretty sure most of the valves at our cottage don't have packing nuts. They are bottom of the line stuff, maybe around 20-25 year old construction (built by other family members). But I can't see there from here right now, will have to wait a couple months for another look...


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## shoot-straight (Apr 1, 2019)

they did pex in my house when it was built 14 years ago. done by "the best" plumbing contractor in our area. unfortunately, they received a bad batch of brass 90s they used throughout my house and a few others. one failed while we were on vacation and flooded our downstairs. worst several months of my life. 

now im scared of anything pretty much.


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