Anyone use PEX tubing
 

DW and I are preparing to build our retirement home. I have a builder pretty well lined out. He's doing most, and I'm doing some. The plumber is scoping out PEX tubing, and I'm wondering if anyone else has had experience with it within the last 3 to 5 years. I know the older stuff wasn't that great, and had lots of problems with pinholes. The newer PEX has reportedly resolved all those issues. It is a nylon product that actually has better properties than copper.

My plans are to use a manifold mounted in the garage, and run dedicated (no splice) lines to each faucet assembly. (hot and cold)

Any thoughts?

b

From what I have heard Pex is the way to go. I had the old plastic pipe under my trailer and it all broke during the ice storm. Plumber replaced it with Pex which CAN freeze but it was unlikley to break

We used PEX to run all our heating lines from the outside boiler, and any new waterlines will be PEX too. Pretty fast to install and as you say you can run dedicated lines or even hot water loops with circ pumps (insulated of course) for instant hot water at the tap very cost effectively. No leaks after 2 years

Pex is great stuff. Benefits are:

Makes turns/snakes through framing easily.
Easy to join fittings.
Freeze proof (we occasionally leave our unheated house for a week at a time during winter and come back with the house 25 degrees and pipes frozen, crank up the woodstove and let pipes thaw, no leaks at all.).
Easy for a do-it-yourselfer to do, no soldering, just pay $75 for the tool to crimp with.
Cuts easily with a utility knife.
Crimped fittings can swivel making a future repair of a threaded joint easier.

Negatives: rats-mice can chew through it (never had it happen, just a possibility) Older pipe and fittings are not as good as the new stuff. If you don't get the ring perfectly straight it will leak. Make sure the tension on the crimper is set properly.

I like the stuff and would recommend it for any new plumbing. 3/4 trunk line with 1/2 lines off of it. Have had it 8 years in our house with no problems.

7 years ago we bought the pex and borrowed the crimper from the lumberyard. We plumbed the house in a day. It works great. Later, when I needed to add a line to the ice maker or the laundry sink, it was simple to cut and spice in a tee.

I got a crimper from ebay for about $30 that you use with a big set of vise grips. You need a strong grip to use it, DW can use the big tong tools, but not the ebay tool. But it is nice to have around for quick jobs.

Hi,
All the new homes around here are done with PEX -- seems like the way to go.

One other thing you might consider the the "home run" plumbing system with PEX:
http://www.toolbase.org/Technology-I...bing-manifolds

http://www.housingzone.com/proremode...CA6412958.html

With this scheme, small PEX pipes are run to each water using fixture -- this cuts down the time to get hot water and saves energy.

Gary

My kids have had two homes with pex tubing and are now building a third. With the first I helped add fixtures and pex is very easy to use, almost no learning curve at all. With that system no special tools were needed to make connections, only some end wrenches and the one wrench provided with the manifold.

The second home was plumbed with Zurn brand pex tubing and I despised that home. There was a terrible taste and odor at all of the water outlets and I can only attribute it to the pex tubing. If there is taste and odor present in the water are there also minute traces of chemicals which would be bad for children and adults? Haven't a clue.

Personally I would rather have no water in my home than to have the second brand system in it. The first was just fine.

Pex is great IF you have the correct tools to install it.

I put PEX in all my rental houses and it's cut way down on service problems - and when I do get one the fix is quick and easy.

I don't like the crimp style pex, though. I like the sharkbite connectors - they are expensive, but require no tools and I've never had one leak.

We put all PEX in the new house. Like Chuck, we used the sharkbite fittings because we heard the crimper can be expensive and difficult to use.

I tried the shark bite fittings on an install a while back and so far so good. I'll stick to the crimp on style, either the ratcheted CV boot type or the compression style. They all seem to work!

we put in hundreds of feet of pex over the last 2 years..my son put it in the cement of his basement when he was building and uses it to heat the basement floor ..basically it will heat the entire house..but we also have pex with insulation and black corrugated over it buried between our houses and to his garage with heat exchangers for heat and water to both houses and garage from our outdoor wood boiler.

have had no problems with the pex at all..works fine..even where we have low areas with water table high..

heard a lot of horror stories but we were blessed with no problems

I did two PEX installations and have been very pleased with the results. It is easier than PVC or copper, both of which I've also used. I use the SSC (Stainless Steel Clamp) type which has one tool that fits a variety of sizes of PEX from 3/8" up to 1". All of the fittings I have used were the brass type. I'm pleased with it and I plan to use PEX extensively in my next project too.

Cheers

-Walter
Sugar Mountain Farm
in the mountains of Vermont
http://SugarMtnFarm.com/blog/
http://HollyGraphicArt.com/
http://NoNAIS.org

My inlaws just finished building their house and have the same issue. We also thought it was the pex. I have heard that it will eventually go away, but it hasn't yet.

I'm thankful that my kids sold their house and moved into a rental until their new home is done, but they were in the stinky smelling water one for almost a year and a half and it never went away during that time.

I always had to use cold filtered water from the refrigerator to make each cup of instant coffee. If I forget to use that water I wound up dumping the cupful.

I wish your in-laws best wishes.

Our PEX is about 7 years old and nary a problem.

1500 feet for our radient floor heating and every inch of plumbing throughout our new home.
No regrets.

Great stuff, used it at work, for both heating loops and plumbing.
Used the crimping tool off my service truck.

Been in the cabin for 4 years now, even had to reroute the line for the washer.
Just cut it, splice in another piece crimp on the fittings and no leaks.
Whole job was done in 10 minutes (plumbing part, not redoing walls).
Would recomend to anyone

That's the route I went. The sharkbite fittings work terrific, and are approved to put behind walls with no manitainence access.

http://windowrock.com/plumbing/5.jpg

Since PEX can't be bent to too tight of a radius, I used 90 deg Sharkbite fittings to turn the corners. Chuck is correct that they are pricey, but at about $4 each the two 90s made turning tight corners really easy. Just shove the PEX into the fitting 1" and they're locked for life.

http://windowrock.com/plumbing/9.jpg

We're in the process of remodeling a building and open a restaurant. I would have to check if PEX will be accepted by the building inspector. What is the cost of PEX over copper?

Bob

they make A PLASTIC SHARK BITE I WENT THE BRASS LIKE YOU DID A LITTLE MORE MONEY BUT WORTH IT sry caps were on

never herd of the water stinking becouse of flex pipe

PEX is a good system. Run it with the home run layout to get the most benefit. The pipe itself is cheap, way cheaper than copper. But if you start adding in a bunch of $4 sharkbite fittings I bet that eats up a lot of the cost difference. If you can get access to a crimper tool that's probably the way to go with it.

My house was built in 1994 (not by me) using CPVC water lines and I would also say that is a good system. The pipe is cheap, it's easy to cut and glue, and it's somewhat flexible so it's really easy to work with. Have not had any problems with it in this house yet.

PEX isn't expensive. I think it's about $25 per 50 foot roll. As Chuck said, it's the Sharkbite fittings that are expensive. Each fitting will cost you $4 to $7 each. You can get the barb fittings for a lot less, but the crimp tool is about $150. You have to do a pretty big project to just break even.

I think you'll find that PEX is universally accepted at all building departments. Our Home Depot doesn't even carry hot water CPVC fittings or pipe anymore. It's either PEX or copper.

By the way, Sharkbite fittings work fine with copper too. You can go into a Sharkbite fitting with PEX, then leave the other side with copper.

Like I said earlier, our local owned lumberyard loans you the crimpers when you buy the fittings from them. I bet other places would, maybe with a deposit.

This is the exact one I got from ebay.
http://cgi.ebay.com/New-PEX-crimper-hand-tool-3-8-1-2-and-3-4-inch_W0QQitemZ170362531926QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_De faultDomain_0?hash=item27aa65f056&_trksid=p3286.c0 .m14&_trkparms=65%3A12|66%3A2|39%3A1|72%3A1205|293 %3A1|294%3A50

It isn't fast but it works fine and even gets in tight spots the big tool can't. And I see plenty of crimpers on ebay for under $100.

Maybe so, but $100 will buy a lot of Sharkbite fittings. I didn't use $100 worth of fittings. Don't forget that the barb fittings aren't free either. While they're only about half the price of Sharkbite fittings, they still add-up.

But if you can borrow the tool then that's terrific.

Sharkbite fittings have no resale value after use. The crimper tool does.

I don't know who you can get to buy them, but Sharkbite fittings are indeed reusable. They sell a little tool that looks like a tiny plastic horseshoe that's used to release the PEX or copper from the fitting.

Wouldn't you still need your fittings in your plumbing?

You got me there...

And with that... good night.

Pex is pretty expensive as far as plastics go. Im not crazy about it. Id just as soon use copper.

I used black plastic pipe for my outdoor wood furnace. It worked fine 'till I had to splice it. Then the gray plastic splice failed from the heat.

From my experience it is only from the one particular brand of pex, i.e. Zurn.

I use nothing but PEX, I'm even going to use it as the main buried water supply from our cistern 100 feet from the house. I don't use the crimp rings, I use the compression style rings with a little metal "loop" that you squeeze with a special tool. It's hard to describe, but all of the Home Depots here in Canada carry them, and the tool to compress them for $30. I've also rented the other compression tool for $5 from Home Hardware. I've never used copper at all, so I've got nothing to compare it to, but coming from a do-it-yourself hack, it's pretty easy!

That's true. PVC is a lot less expensive than PEX, easier to work with, and rated at 160 to 400 psi. You really can't beat schedule 40 PVC for standard cold water service.

In the newspaper today I was reading an article about the dangers of phthalates which are in PVC but apparently not in PEX from what I can find googling. Phthalates have been linked to liver damage in infants.

http://www.smartbrief.com/news/acc/s...3-087AFD960711

Cheers

-Walter
Sugar Mountain Farm
in the mountains of Vermont
http://SugarMtnFarm.com/blog/
http://HollyGraphicArt.com/
http://NoNAIS.org

In regards to PVC. I don't know how it is everywhere, but here it is illeagal to use PVC for potable water.

I believe that since phthalates are used to soften plastics that it's doubtful that PVC pipe has ever contained it. But even if it did, phthalates have been phased-out of all food-grade plastics. I wouldn't have a problem with using PVC for a water supply line to the house.

While that may be true, I've never encountered it myself.

Copper is no good though, if there are a lot of minerals (calcium) in one's well water. As me how I know! :rolleyes:

DH is a new home and also a remodeling contractor. He says PEX are the only way to go.