Saturday, May 12, 2007

Kinda photo progression

Here is a quick series of pics from this weekend's PEX work. It is holding tight with 30 pounds of pressurized air, the only problems were with the fittings to regular plumbing. I also had the brass cap assembled backwards for closing the hot side. Once we fixed that and tightened the shower diverters, it was good.
This is the start of the hot (red) side. There are 10 hot lines in Thistle House.
This is the first two lines on the hot. I put an elbow in each line to get a nice straight run at the valves on the manifold. It cost about $20, but it's worth it for a clean installation and leak free, worry free assembly.
This is the hot finished, starting on the cold lines. There are 16 of those. I punted on line 16, which goes to the refridgerator. I will 'tee' it in to the washer line as they are in the same stud bay.
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4 comments:

Unknown said...

How's the Pex to work with? I've only worked with copper supply lines (well, besides tearing out old, corroded galvanized steel pipes).

My first visit to your blog. Besides your excellent name :-), the Habitat for Humanity link caught my eye. I'm a regular volunteer at our local affiliate, as well as being the Thrivent Builds 'chapter specialist' to help coordinate between Thrivent, Habitat, and local Lutheran churches.

For the plans, since you can't post a PDF, you could post one or more JPEGs to show them instead. Not as detailed, but will give the general layout.

Unknown said...

The PEX is really easy to work with. I have no real success with copper, as my soldering skills are non-existent. The PEX has two major advantages to it, first it's a simple crimp fitting over the barbed fittings. The second advantage is that it can be setup like an electrical panel and distribute the hot and cold from a central manifold. I have the ability to turn on or off a line from the basement (made it easy to test it and find the leaking fittings (not the crimps but the threaded fittings that weren't tight enough)). Since each line is a home-run, there is a short run of tubing from the source to the fixture--a short wait for hot water will save water (good for environment and pocketbook).

It's owner-builder proof. It installs like electrical wire, crimps easily (see if you can borrow the expensive tool) and can be retrofitted inside of a wall (assuming you can snake it through).

Unknown said...

I'll probably stick with copper for our house since it's basically done except the kitchen remodel, but PEX does sound interesting. The key with working with copper is MAPP gas. It heats more quickly and hence more precisely than regular propane.

But I'm intrigued by PEX for a friend's house that's currently all galvanized and has problems where that's gotten corroded.

Unknown said...

Gene--it's also a lot cheaper than copper right now. It is sized on outside, not inside, diameter. At first thought it seems like you would lose volume delivered, but the 'slipperiness' of the plastic and it's calcification resistance (no limescale) make up for that change in size. It's really simple to install, cheap, long lasting, easy to change if you forget something (oops, what about the 'fridge?) and color coded. How cool is that?