There’s no real upside to partially replacing the existing copper at the moment, though.Quote:
Originally Posted by mmc45414
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There’s no real upside to partially replacing the existing copper at the moment, though.Quote:
Originally Posted by mmc45414
We remodeled 12 years ago and did the whole thing with a manifold and dedicated runs to each fixture. I also did not put a shutoff at each fixture, just ran the pex right to them, as shutoffs are right there at the top for trouble spots. My brother and dad built houses around the same time with a manifold and home runs to shutoffs, then supply lines from the shutoff to fixture. Both have had issues with shutoffs and supply lines. Me? No problems at all.Quote:
Originally Posted by BN
We're going to remodel another one here soon and it will be getting the same treatment.
I'm a huge fan of Sharkbite connections,and PEX. Years ago I wouldn't do hardly anything plumbing related, due to the soldering of copper pipe. Now, I do a lot of plumbing myself, with some exceptions, like the pressure regulating valves mentioned in the other thread.
I will offer one note of caution, PEX should not be exposed to UV light, or it will degrade: https://upgradedhome.com/how-to-prot...20PEX%20piping.
However, its easy to prevent UV exposure.
I'm happy to report AvE has done some testing in this area:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZS7BV8yfIIE
Make sure you have a Leakfrog or some other water detector near your water inlet area. I found out the hard way. My house was started in 1968, and sat until 1970 with just the foundation poured and the water and gas lines installed (Had to do that to pour the foundation). Anyway, we moved in early '82 and somehow all kinds of stuff waited until then to loosen up and leak. We had almost immediately, a major gas leak from the meter, then another one from near the furnace. A friend and I went and tightened up all the gas pipe going from the meter to the furnace and a lot of joints were sort of loose. We thought we were all set, but then, when it was 10 degrees, the supply pipe coming in from the street started leaking, and we had to shut the gas off, hire someone to dig up the yard and then they discovered that, guess what, the shutoff valve was just loose, so a quick tightening up and an emergency inspection and turn on got our heat back on. Only one night with 3 dogs in a motel!
Then the water leaks started. The first one I saw start from about 6 feet away. Right off the water meter, there is 1/2" copper than makes a 90 degree bend to go up to the kitchen sink on both hot and cold. The cold side's sweat joint cracked and a fine mist of water sprayed out. A friend of mine and I got the torch out and redid the joint. It was a two man operation, because the floor assembly was up against the copper and one of us had had keep putting out the fire that tried to start everytime the torch was near the joint. Finally got that done, and for a while, all was well. I had a major health incident and was basically out of the house for over a month in 2007, and when I came back, the windows were sweaty and it was very humid in the house. A check downstairs showed that the hot water outlet of the water heater had cracked, on a sweated joint, of course, spraying steam and hot water out. The basement had about 3" of water in it, destroying a lot of stuff I had stored down there. After that was fixed and 3 Leakfrogs had been placed in the basement, the water heater failed and at least no damage came from that, except to my wallet.
But the leaks weren't done yet. Water and gas, yes, but it was another leak's time to appear, good old CO, carbon monoxide. I went downstairs with my dogs to watch a movie, and I got a bad headache. About the same time, my dogs were walking around with their noses in the air, all three of them, and I thought that was just odd. So I go and look at the furnace, and took one of those long matches and found the draft was gone and it was dumping CO into the basement. I shut off the furnace and called the HVAC company we used and they came out and It got fixed, but they said whoever put the furnace in messed up the flue and it didn't pull the draft it should have. A couple of years later. it leaked again, and at that point, a new furnace was installed and the new one had a very good draft so no more CO drama.
The last leak was after I had sold it to the friend who helped me fix the above stuff. There was a storm and suddenly there was water in the basement again. Leakfrogs saved the day, as he hadn't planned on going downstairs that day as he was fixing things up to flip the house. That was 3+ years ago, and so far, no more leaks!
Oh, man! It almost sounds like the house needs an exorcism.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hemiram
I’m a fan of those little water detection alarms, too. Plus I see there are pipe mounted leak detectors now - some just alert, but others have an automatic shutoff function if a leak condition is detected. I want to look into those.
Another thing I want to look at is the automatic leak shutoff hoses for the washing machine - we have a second floor laundry, so a failure would make a water feature out of the staircase. Toilet feeds, too.
Either I have the best luck, or you the worst . . . I own two homes, both done in copper. One since 1988 (built in '82, as I recall) and on municipal water, and the other built, as I recall, in 1959 (owned since 1962 by the family) and on a well.
Zero leaks. in the older (changed a few valves over the years, but that was it) and one dribble (again, failing valve) in the laundry in the newer, and that would have been trivial if the idiot who had plumbed it had not soldered the threaded valve, requiring me to open the wall to get to it.
In any case, zero failures of the copper or joints.
Which is why I am of the mindset that things like PEX are a solution in search of a problem. (Or, mlre likely, an enabler of far less skilled plumbers in the trade . . .)
Late to the party, but I'll chime in. I use Sharkbite for all kinds of fixes. Love it. It's so easy an idiot can do it, and I do.
Local inspectors won't let you cover them inside walls, and I'm old school enough to not want to do that anyway. But as long as it's visible where you can see it, we use them all the time.
I think that the house's issues came from the sitting when the original owner/builder ran out of money. I vaguely remember riding my bike past my future house as a 13 year old and all there was was a large poured concrete foundation with some pipes in the ground. We paid a good price for it in '82, but there were a lot of things we noticed right away, like the really cheap light fixtures, the attic fan that blew out the water heater pilot light when used (Fixed when the original heater died and no more pilot light), the not so great drywall work, and the stuff in the above post. The A/C was weakish, fixed in '86 with a new unit, but still not great. I don't think we would have bought the house if we had known it's history, but we didn't know about the long delay until a neighbor told us about it.Quote:
Originally Posted by HeavyDuty
I had the washer hot side line leak a tiny bit once when I ignored the "Change them every 5 years" advice, and the hoses hit about 10 years old. No real damage, just a little mist of hot water and some drama in trying to get the valve to shut off without breaking it.
Now I'm in an apartment, and the washer is my main worry about doing any damage. I check the hoses constantly.
I *finally* was able to get the pressure regulator and new shutoff valve installed. I had an issue getting one of the fittings to seat properly, but a few tries and a call to the manufacturers tech help line and it was done. I left the existing two shutoffs in place because there wasn’t much clearance between the backflow preventer and the house side shutoff. I cut in the new ball shutoff about six inches downstream from all that, a 12” stub and then the pressure regulator - I was careful to use the Sharkbite cut end cleanup tool on all pipe ends. The house side is now a stable 45 psi, down from 85-120.
Next step - cutting in a new Sharkbite ball valve on the water heater feedline to replace the failed open gate valve, and to spin on a new water heater pressure equalization tank to replace the old one that failed after being subjected to the street pressure.
Thanks for all of the advice, guys.