flood from failed compression fitting w/pex
homebound
12 years ago
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homebound
12 years agobrickeyee
12 years agoRelated Discussions
PEX tubing instead of copper???
Comments (53)The initial material cost differences between copper and plastics are significant. A article comparing costs for different plumbing pipes can be found here: http//:www.southce.org/ajwhelton. A US government funded study to investigate what chemicals leach out of American plastic plumbing pipe is also underway. Go to that same web page and type in 'plastic pipe'. There has been quite a bit of work done in Europe but American materials have not been equally publicly scrutinized. Some of the study data has already been released and testing included actual buildings and testing of new pipes purchased at local building supply stores. Here is a link that might be useful: Informational research website...See MorePEX and Connector Fittings
Comments (14)"SparkingWater" thanks for your photo link. This seems to be a photo of the Rehau fittings that prompted my post. Here is more about it, but perhaps not a definitive link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nf9kut6mBdc I am learning that these Rehau fittings are having problems with "zinc-ification" and have had to be replaced. Again, here is a link that may not be definitive, but at least explains the problem: http://www.repipenevada.com/kitec_rehau.html. If it is not one thing it is another. As an alternative, it seems that for connector fittings the Wirsbo, now Uponor is the system of choice these days for PEX (at least from my limited interviews here in Seattle). Who knows down the road what will happen. Here's more information about Uponor: http://www.uponor-usa.com/en/Header/Systems/Plumbing/Homeowner/Overview.aspx here is an interesting link from apparently an inspector's view: http://inspectapedia.com/plumbing/Plastic_Pipes.htm. I do have concerns about long term health exposure using PEX. I hope someone can point me to more recent data, but here is an analysis which reports that PEX likely leaches substances harmful in drinking water, including BPA, but the issue has not been fully studied: http://www.documents.dgs.ca.gov/bsc/pex/exhibit_a_reid_pex.pdf No filtration system seems to be able to filter out BPA. So, although PEX is approved in CA building codes, the issue of safety in drinking water was not fully vetted (perhaps a lawsuit addressed this issue, but I have not researched that). (Are Upanor fittings made in Germany so no BPA?? Is that a crazy assumption?) I think the gist of the message on this discussion link is "go with copper". Oh boy, that I could! I will go ahead and get a quote for copper, but I bet it will really blow our budget. Still, I have young children and I do not want my choice on plumbing to put them at any risk, knowing that perhaps at this point the risks have not been fully evaluated yet. Of course, the issue that really started this thread for me was reliability of PEX fittings... Here is a link that might be useful: BPA in PEX?...See Morecompression fitting technique
Comments (6)I would discourage the use of compression fittings. They are the weakest type to use in that application. Typically used by only the wham-bam homebuilders, as they are quick and easy for illegal immigrant faux-plumbers to install. A family member bought a fairly upscale (built mid-90s) townhouse which was plumbed with compression fitted supply stops. When the time came for a DIY swap out of some toilet tank guts, the valve spun right off the pipe! This created quite the flood while he scrambled downstairs, out the door, and fumbled around in the bushes--in the dark, nach--for the main shutoff. As an alternative, I'd suggest sweating on a male (MIPS) nipple, then wrapping it in teflon tape and torqueing on a FIPS-fitted supply stop. A nipple is a single, simple joint to sweat solder, even with limited torch skills (as contrasted with a tee, for instance). Plus you can look right inside the nipple and see if there's a silver ring of solder completely around the perimeter of the pipe-end, which is a good indication of a properly "filled" joint. I see at least 2 problems with that DIY site: 1) Teflon tape or dope on the end of the pipe? WTH? This shows a lack of understanding of how the pipe deforms and seals to the ferrule, and how the ferrule seals to the funneled housing. Tape could possibly interfere with that. Just let the carefully formulated metals do their metal-on-metal thing. Plus the metal-on-metal squeaking becomes a good indicator of having tightened enough, and discourages OVER-tightening. 2) As pointed out by Formula1, it's VERY important that you use a 2nd wrench to apply COUNTER-torque to the valve body (which has wrench flats for just that), such that the pipe itself experiences close to zero torsion. Failing to do that could collapse the pipe itself, or even compromise the ell-joint inside the wall!...See MoreW10 upgrade from W7, backup or image for recovery of W7?
Comments (26)A long time ago, I did a Mint Mate install(actual install, not live) onto a 16GB Gigaware USB flash drive. It booted slow as molasses and the first time running apps was just as slow. It ran fine afterward though. I considered getting a faster flash drive such as a SanDisk Extreme, but it wasn't it my budget at that time. I seem to remember playing around with bcd.exe but my memory is short. Some day I'll have to give EasyBCD a try. In the meantime, GRUB works for me. An extraordinarily boring (and embarrassing, mostly because I flubbed customizing GRUB2 because I'm too lazy to learn to use it properly right now) video of my installing Mint Mate alongside Windows 10 in a virtual machine... I suppose the point is that they can, at least sometimes, live happily beside one another. I was really expecting Mint Mate to offer to "install alongside windows" and auto-partition but it did not. Don't some other Ubuntu based distros do that? Or is it just full blown Ubuntu? Anyway, after all my stumbling, doing it incorrectly, redoing etc., Grub now reads exactly the way I want, remembers the previous boot choices etc. ... That's just a virtual machine though. I wouldn't suggest others try it on their real machines. I suppose if one were to practice setting up a dual boot system, a virtual environment would be the safe place to learn, right? BTW, I used Oracle's VirtualBox in the above videos. Free and open source. Oops, I just read the warning on the VirtualBox download page: "Please be aware that Windows 10 is not yet officially supported!" Oh well, seems to run fine for me....See Moredan_martyn
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