PEX plumbing tutorial

[luvrbus]

Looks to be only 1 manufacture of Pex is approved in CA  you won't be buying the Uponor brand at HD or Lowes lol it comes with a plumber

good luck

[Singing Land Cruiser]

If the Rat only ate a little, it would have lived a long life.  M&C

[Christyhicks]

We've been usng pex for years, and pretty much our only failures have been from trim carpenter nails....which, we've found, can seal around themselves and actually hold pressure for up to eleven months! . Ask me how I know!

We did do some repairs on an 8-plex that had some lines that split.  It seems that the unit sat, unfinished and exposed to sunlight, for quite some time, and since the pex used was not UV resistant, it appears that sunlight degration was the cause.  All non-uv safe pex shoud be store out of the sunlight and exposed pex in slabs should be protected if construction halts for an extended period of time. 

Other leaks have been due to damage caused by concrete guys, famers, etc....., but  we saw that in copper houses too, so really no difference there.  We did see a gopher chew through a line once (we think), but then we've seen gravel or rocks eat through many a copper line too.

Over the years, we've seen quite a few units freeze during construction, (and in finished houses) during extreme weather, but the only freeze failures we've seen have been the brass ball valves and fittings.  I find it amazing that if there's a leak on a copper house, someone repairs it and no one thinks twice, but if it's a material other than copper, people immediately want a class action!  Oh well, guess that's life.  Christy Hicks

[luvrbus]

I am using PEX on a rental we are redoing I don't if it is good or bad so I am not singing any praises but I will be truthful the only reason I am using PEX because it is CHEAP and EASY what can you say lol one thing I found in looking for plumbers here they don't give you much of break on labor for installing PEX 


good luck

[Christyhicks]

Well, one nice thing is that when we do a pex job, we don't have to go back and replace the lines that were ripped out of the ground that night by some low-life, lower than worm-dirt, lazy-butt, jerk-off thief! 

The pex pipe itself is pretty reasonable, but the fittings, being brass, are not exactly cheap. . .otoh, nothing in the world of commodity pricing is cheap anymore. . . if the public only knew how high materials really have climbed over the last few years, they'd realize that the cost of EVERYTHING is going to continue to climb as the economy improves, because currently, most of the chain, from manufacturer to dealer, has absorbed a large portion of those cost increases, but at some point down the line, when things are indeed improving for sure, end user costs will have to climb.  Sooner or later, companies are going to want to make actual profit again, instead of just being satisfied with keep their employees working and breaking even, IMHO .

There is no way I would use copper in anything I plumbed of my own. . . the pex doesn't corrode, it doesn't split if frozen, and it is so easy to make modifications to the system, that I can't imagine wanting to use any other material.  Of course, we haven't had problems with our poly in our own home, which has been in for over 20 years, including the year we were in MN during a cold snap, and thinking he was doing us a favor by shutting off the breaker that he thought went to our well, my father-in-law actually shut the breaker off to our heater, ha ha.  Walked in the house upon arriving home, and immediately told Larry, "Something's wrong. . it's too cold in here!"  hahahaha good times. . . ice skating in the kitchen, burned up well pump, New Years Eve party planned for the next day. . . . just another one of our mis-adventures with a happy ending.

  Christy Hicks