- My Forums
- Tiger Rant
- LSU Recruiting
- SEC Rant
- Saints Talk
- Pelicans Talk
- More Sports Board
- Winter Olympics
- Fantasy Sports
- Golf Board
- Soccer Board
- O-T Lounge
- Tech Board
- Home/Garden Board
- Outdoor Board
- Health/Fitness Board
- Movie/TV Board
- Book Board
- Music Board
- Political Talk
- Money Talk
- Fark Board
- Gaming Board
- Travel Board
- Food/Drink Board
- Ticket Exchange
- TD Help Board
Customize My Forums- View All Forums
- Show Left Links
- Topic Sort Options
- Trending Topics
- Recent Topics
- Active Topics
Started By
Message
re: Pex vs Copper - New Home Construction
Posted on 1/22/19 at 7:32 am to Chuker
Posted on 1/22/19 at 7:32 am to Chuker
quote:
If running your line in the ground from the street then you may still be better off cost wise using pvc. 500ft of 1" pex-a is pushing $700. 100' of pex-b (crimp ring) is $50
Been looking on line and yes high dollar cost. Would hate to run 1200' of PVC under ground. For some reason, I did have some joints open up in the past which was a PITA to find a leak. A lot of that is because of the blue buckshot mud here moves a lot.
When I installed the PEX in my guest house, I did fill all lines with water and then pumped up the system to 60 psi. Had one small leak which was a easy fix. Kept the pressure at 60 for 24 hours. Reason as to why at 60, the water meters here run at 40 psi.
0
Posted on 1/22/19 at 7:51 am to SCwTiger
I’ve had pex split twice on me. Both times under a raised deck and at a fitting. I keep pipe insulation on my lines under the deck and at all fittings. I think the clamp fitting wouldn’t allow the pex to expand as it does along the length of a run and caused it to burst at the fitting.
Posted on 1/22/19 at 9:02 am to poochie
Uponor (PEX A) hands down. I converted my whole house from galvanized to PEX 10 years ago. I did all of the work myself and didn't have so much as a drip when done. Like others have said, no shark bite fittings and no metallic crimp rings. If your contractor doesn't want to use Uponor, get another contractor.
Posted on 1/22/19 at 2:49 pm to Tigerhead
Yes, I will restate, do not use the crimp fittings (PEX-b), it is the cheap stuff they sell at home Depot. Also, do not use sharkbite for anything more than temporary repairs.
Buy uponor PEX-a from either supply house.com, or from a local supplier.
If you are paying a plumber to do it, find one that uses PEX-a. And if any of them even hint at installing sharkbite, find a new plumber
Buy uponor PEX-a from either supply house.com, or from a local supplier.
If you are paying a plumber to do it, find one that uses PEX-a. And if any of them even hint at installing sharkbite, find a new plumber
Posted on 1/22/19 at 3:20 pm to dltigers3
quote:
do not use sharkbite
I was coming to post this. I had to make a repair in my house and they had these installed. They are horrible to work with. I cut them out under the kitchen sink to get rid of them.
Posted on 1/22/19 at 5:07 pm to MSWebfoot
How was your duck season?
Posted on 1/22/19 at 6:30 pm to poochie
Recently remodeled a house and changed everything from copper to pex.
I purchased everything from supply house. supply house
Everything I used was uponor. Had to buy the battery tool thats collecting dust now. If anyone is interested.
I purchased everything from supply house. supply house
Everything I used was uponor. Had to buy the battery tool thats collecting dust now. If anyone is interested.
Posted on 1/22/19 at 6:55 pm to lildaddy86
quote:
Everything I used was uponor. Had to buy the battery tool thats collecting dust now. If anyone is interested.
I did the same thing. Bought the Milwaukee tool for $400. I decided to keep mine instead of selling it, just in case I ever decide to put a drop in or whatever. The best quote I got from a plumbing company to do my house was around $6000. I did the whole house for $1600, which included the cost of the tool. I ended up buying a Milwaukee sabre saw and a work light that use the same batteries as the expander tool, just to keep the batteries from sitting around and going stale.
Posted on 1/22/19 at 7:03 pm to lildaddy86
quote:
Had to buy the battery tool thats collecting dust now. If anyone is interested.
Which tool and how much?
Posted on 1/22/19 at 9:19 pm to Clames
Posted on 1/23/19 at 8:36 am to iwantacooler
quote:
I think the clamp fitting wouldn’t allow the pex to expand as it does along the length of a run and caused it to burst at the fitting.
That is one reason why you don't use the crimp ring or sharkbite fittings. The Uponor PEX joints use a PEX reinforcing ring at the fitting that has the same memory characteristics as the PEX tubing. It's not crimped on, so there is no crimp that can open up when it freezes. Also, make sure you keep insulation on your PEX if it sees any direct sunlight under that deck. PEX should not be used in direct sunlight because it is not UV proof.
Posted on 1/23/19 at 9:38 am to lildaddy86
I bought a hand powered expansion tool off Amazon for $50. It worked great. I did about a dozen fittings over the course of a couple of hours. It was all pretty easy
Also, not sure if the op was doing a diy job or not, but just some good info. You can use compression fittings such as compression shutoffs for sinks, but you need to replace the brass compression ring with a plastic one, and you have to use a metal insert. If you don't use the metal insert the compression fitting will collapse the pipe and work itself off. Don't ask me how I know
Also, not sure if the op was doing a diy job or not, but just some good info. You can use compression fittings such as compression shutoffs for sinks, but you need to replace the brass compression ring with a plastic one, and you have to use a metal insert. If you don't use the metal insert the compression fitting will collapse the pipe and work itself off. Don't ask me how I know
This post was edited on 1/23/19 at 9:41 am
Posted on 1/23/19 at 11:32 am to Tigerhead
quote:
That is one reason why you don't use the crimp ring or sharkbite fittings. The Uponor PEX joints use a PEX reinforcing ring at the fitting that has the same memory characteristics as the PEX tubing. It's not crimped on, so there is no crimp that can open up when it freezes.
This isn't true, crimp ring systems do not simply open up if they freeze if correctly applied. The tubing will take up the expansion, PEX-A is more flexible and is the only type to be used with expansion systems but PEX-A has a lower burst strength than PEX-B. PEX-B still has enough give to handle freezes without stretching crimp rings.
Posted on 1/23/19 at 1:25 pm to SCwTiger
quote:
Ever had a copper line split in cold weather? Pex can freeze with water in it and will expand up to 1-1/2 times it's size without bursting.
And when it freezes it's a motherfricker to get unfrozen. The only drawback I've found.
Posted on 1/23/19 at 2:04 pm to Clames
quote:
This isn't true, crimp ring systems do not simply open up if they freeze if correctly applied. The tubing will take up the expansion, PEX-A is more flexible and is the only type to be used with expansion systems but PEX-A has a lower burst strength than PEX-B. PEX-B still has enough give to handle freezes without stretching crimp rings.
You may be right. I'm not a plumber. I'm basing my statements on second hand information from the counter guys at Moore Plumbing in Houston. That's where I bought my expansion tool and most of my materials. Since they do handle Uponor products, they may be biased. But they said they did the freezer test thing and claimed they saw some failures in the crimp ring PEX.
I have to say I was impressed by the lengths they went to in their testing. I had seen the test on the internet where they just throw a piece that's capped on both ends in the freezer. But they said that didn't prove much because once the pipe was thawed it was not under pressure. They claimed to have gone a step further. Once they took the piece out of the freezer and thawed it out, they cut one end off and put on a different fitting that allowed them to pressure it up. I don't remember what pressure they said. They said that was when they saw some drips on some of the crimp ring stuff. Don't remember any mention of bursting or major failures on any of the PEX. Seemed legit, but they are in the business of selling a product.
Posted on 1/23/19 at 5:03 pm to Tigerhead
quote:
They said that was when they saw some drips on some of the crimp ring stuff. Don't remember any mention of bursting or major failures on any of the PEX.
There's a good video on YouTube showing pressure testing of the most common PEX systems and the two of the crimp systems were last to fail but almost all the joints exceeded the burst strength of the tubing itself. The expander PEX fittings require PEX-A tubing which is more elastic but slightly weaker than PEX-B. Crimp rings work with both types of PEX but I imagine PEX-B is better suited.
This post was edited on 1/23/19 at 5:05 pm
Posted on 1/23/19 at 6:05 pm to Tigerhead
I personally use the pex-b with copper crimp rings. I did a tremendous amount of research and concluded it would suit my needs just fine. Although Uponor/Wirsbo was the clear winner of the best during my research. I just couldn't justify the extra cost. I think the biggest plus with the pex-a is the fitting doesn't reduce the size of the interior pipe. Quite a consiterable difference in 1/2" reduced to 3/8". I want to say 50% of the water flow?
For some reason Uponor fittings cost like 3x as much as crimp fittings. Maybe because of quality or maybe Uponor knows they've got the good shite and people will pay for it.
For some reason Uponor fittings cost like 3x as much as crimp fittings. Maybe because of quality or maybe Uponor knows they've got the good shite and people will pay for it.
Posted on 1/23/19 at 8:59 pm to Tigerhead
The crimp didn’t open up, the tubing burst and split at the crimp.
Posted on 1/23/19 at 10:00 pm to Chuker
quote:
Quite a consiterable difference in 1/2" reduced to 3/8". I want to say 50% of the water flow?
No, nowhere near that level of flow difference, something like 10% - 25% from 1/2" to 1" diameter fittings. That's an academic argument because your showers and faucets can only flow so much and your local water pressure is a bigger factor than anything.
Posted on 1/23/19 at 10:57 pm to baldona
quote:
The real answer OP is a great plumber will use something like 95% pex and 5% copper. As said above there are certainly places like stub outs for shut off valves behind toilets and sinks, mixers in your bath/ shower, etc. where your top plumbers will still use some copper.
My old man was a plumber, and a damn good one at that. Old school. Took pride in his work. When he built his new house post Katrina he used pex. (He also used a tank water heater, but that's a different subject) Its way easier to run and the connections are easier then copper. But like baldona said you need a good plumber to take the time to cut blocks and strap the pex securely to the studs and joists. Also a good plumber will run pex in the attic and wall and stub out the wall with copper. Actually there are prefabbed copper stub outs that connect to the pex without any soldering.
To the OP...use the pex and don't worry.
Page 3 of 4
Popular
Back to top
Follow TigerDroppings for LSU Football News