water supply line

[bubblegummom]

We’re West Seattle residents and we need to have a new water line put in. I’m going back and forth between Pex and copper. Would anyone who currently has a Pex or copper supply line let me know if you are having good luck or any problems? If you have a copper line, do you know how old it is?

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[redblack]

from the street? i have copper. (you want the type K copper, which is rated for underground use.) not sure when it replaced the galvanized that the house was built with.

inside the house, we have pex, which replaced 50-year-old galvanized. we love it. it’s inexpensive, because plumbers can route it anywhere. and it’s quiet. no water hammer. fittings for pex, however, can be cheap or expensive.

i like shark-bite type fittings and we have some of those. they’re the most expensive kind, but they’re very easy to install and remove, and they can be used to mate copper and pex where applicable. but for the main runs, the plumber used compression rings. when he was finished, we had to go through the entire house and check every fitting. most of them leaked at first, but once he tightened them down, we have had no problems. evidently, those ring fittings shrink to a specific compressive strength that won’t break plastic.

copper, however, has a long history of being reliable without much corrosion. the jury is out on pex until it starts failing. if you go with copper, there’s a lot of soldering, and copper repipes will cost you about 40% more than pex, from what i can tell.

CPVC is another option, but i don’t know a lot about it.

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[bubblegummom]

Thanks, redblack! With your pex, is it inside the walls, or do they keep it totally out in the open?

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[WorldCitizen]

I second what Redblack said. We have Pex and it’s fantastic for inside the house. Copper outside would be my go-to choice. Our Pex is in the walls. Easy.

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[redblack]

hmm. i guess you could surface mount it. that might be a little unorthodox, but i don’t think there’s anything technically illegal about it. your plumber would love it: no sheet rock removal or replacement. :)

we’re fortunate to have a daylight basement, so all plumbing – and half of the wiring – is accessible through the bonus/utility room ceiling, which is still unfinished for the express purpose of access to utilities. from there, it’s straight up into the upstairs wall cavities. (eventually, i’ll come up with a removable ceiling panel system in there to avoid sheet rock demo if anything needs fixing.)

sadly, you’ll probably have to have some sheet rock removed and replaced. your plumber will tell you what he needs to access it, and he’ll either “know a guy” who will do that, or you can find a wall finisher on your own.

for example, bathtub supply lines are particularly obnoxious, and you’ll want to consider how the plumber is going to access them. you might have to remove tile, or you might have to access it from behind in an adjacent room. even with the open access in our floor plan, i still had to open one wall behind a bathtub.

folks on the forums here will have many recommendations for both jobs, and you can generally trust your neighbors. but angie’s list is well worth the modest yearly fee.

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[kootchman]

It had a rough time passing in CA..one major hurdle was the history of PB failures.CA wanted to add homeowner protections by a special surcharge or tax…and an emergency fund..the PB pipe failures left a lot of homeowners holding the bag. CA didn’t want a repeat….. but it has passed that hurdle. Like any polymer, the consumer is just flat out exposed to the ethics of the producer. Flexibility is achieved by adding plasticizer agents..an example.. before DuPont Elvaloy… your dashboards cracked because cheap plastic producers used cheap plasticizers that migrated ( palm kernal oil at one time)…with heat and UV exposure, That was the “new car smell”… PEX has one major achilles heel… it is not UV stable. Warehousing at the local distributor can be critical. I had some installed. My plumber said one supplier stocks his material outside. IMHO…. I would do two things.. make sure it is a domestic producer. USA made. You aren’t going to get any satisfaction from a Chinese producer if it all goes wrong. Second, if it is going to be installed blind, beneath flooring etc… check the dealers inventory… if they store it outside… go somewhere else. Don’t rely on your contractor..do the visit yourself.

“Degradation from sunlight. PEX tubing cannot be used in applications exposed to sunlight, as it degrades fairly rapidly.[18] Prior to installation it must be stored away from sunlight, and needs to be shielded from daylight after installation. Leaving it exposed to direct sunlight for as little as 30 days may result in premature failure of the tubing due to embrittlement”

I went with copper for la casa. It has a great recycle rate too. When PEX has a good 40 year history….I’d consider it. I used PEX for the hot and cold water lines in the boat… so far so good. I wrapped it to prevent exposure to sunlight. Lots of bends and couplings and they all worked fine.

What I don’t know… is from time to time… we get attic rats and or squirrels…the little ba__tards have actually chewed through the cedar siding and roof decking ..to get shleter.. my plumber was not very reassuring that the critters wouldn’t gnaw on them.

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[dbsea]

I’d choose copper for its longevity and track record. I have a hard time trusting the plastics industry when it comes to what will pollute my body.

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[bubblegummom]

Thanks redblack, WorldCitizen, kootchman, and dbsea! I think I will go with copper, at least on the underground part, but one plumber said that Seattle Utilities has upped the chlorine in the water some time in the last few years and it’s having a bad effect on the copper. The next plumber indicated he didn’t think it would be a problem, though, especially on a cold water line.

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[redblack]

kootch is right about the UV degradation of pex piping. i wouldn’t use it underground.

but its polymers are largely derived from plant resins.

and it’s made in america.

so, you can either have your water pass through metal, solder, and flux, or you can have it pass through plastic polymer.

whichever way you go, make sure you get the right grade of material. especially on the underground part. you don’t want to have to do it again. (mine runs under a big rockery.)

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[kootchman]

That would be true..any catalytic reaction increases at higher temperatures. Chlorine also attacks plastic groups. I am surprised about that upping the chlorine content… we just paid many billions for new UV/ Ozone treatment plants in the Tolt and Cedar river watersheds. … to minimize chlorine use. Even swimming pools are moving to bromine systems. I won’t do PVC… at all. For anything. It an environmental hazard. In both manufacturing and disposal. The primary plasticizer agent is phthalate esters… HORRID…. estrogen mimic, highly migratable out of the plastic, birth defects… and it is so prevalent throughout the world.. it can come from anywhere… (schedule 40 is a PVC pipe) I am part of an ongoing test for contaminated water on a military base in NC and Agent Orange. so I get to see my phthalate ester load… it’s in the fat, bone, brain tissue of virtually every citizen on this planet. I’d have to side with dbsea on this one!

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