PEX Concerns, should I worry?

Hello:

Im a new member, I decided to join just to ask some questions about the PEX in my house.

My house was built in 2006, and was plumbed with a ZURN PEX system, complete with the home runs, manifold, etc.

Anyways I have heard about and read about the ZURN class action lawsuit regarding the fittings failing. I have had my plumber, who wasn't the original plumber of the house remove a couple fittings to check for corrosion and dezincification; he found none, none of the brass looks any worse for wear. He is a old time plumber who believes many of the CSST gas pipe lawsuits and PEX lawsuits are from lawyers and homeowners whose homes were plumbed with materials not suitable for their geographic locations chasing money. Here in suburbia outside Denver he still uses brass fittings with stainless clamps and he has never had or seen a failure. He also mentioned that since my whole house has a ECO WATER conditioner / softener its probably helping keep the PEX healthy. He kind of danced around the subject since he doesn't want to say everything is 'ok and something happen.

When the house was built I had a FLOODSTOPPER system installed (www.thefloodstopper.com) and their are 27 sensors placed around the house and under sinks by the washer and dryer, by the manifold; etc; the floodstopper is also tied into the alarm panel so if the water shuts off it sends a signal to the central station alerting them that the water in the house has shut off and then they call me. So in theory if something breaks I'll have some damage, but not a complete flood out.

So to the pros, should I be concerned and start re-pipeing with Uponor / Wirsbo, or let it alone and keep an eye on it and see how the class action pans out?

I wonder this too; there thousands of houses in the Denver area with Zurn Pex.

The flood stoppers is a good idea, the ECO Water is doing absolutely nothing.

There is no way I would even consider repiping the house until something happened that indicated it might be necessary, and right now you do NOT have any such indicators.

I was kind of wondering about the ZURN too, thanks to those who replied; I was just at a Parade of Homes house this past weekend that was plumbed with the ZURN fittings in question. I remember when I bought my house in 08 that has ZURN fittings I went to ZURNS website to check out their products and what not, I remember seeing that they put the ZURN pex with the brass fittings and stainless steel bands into a big residential high rise in Seattle as well as many other high profile projects.

I would sleep easy with that system and especially with the water sensors. But the main benificiary of the flood prevention is your insurance company that would have paid for your sudden leak no matter who made the pipe.

I prefer Uphonor for pipe but still use SS clamp system on it. I do think the clamps should be wider or one should use 2 per joint.

Ain't it funny how you never see posts from folks concerned with new copper pipe installed in their homes? Ya, I know, hardly anyone still installs copper in new homes, but there still a few of us out there. I pretty much give up on the whole pex issue. As long as its cheap and fast some plumbers and homeowners are going to flock to it like fleas to a dog. When the stuff begins to catastrophically fail ( and some has ) then everyone will be saying "see, I told you so"

Wally Hays said:

Ain't it funny how you never see posts from folks concerned with new copper pipe installed in their homes? Ya, I know, hardly anyone still installs copper in new homes, but there still a few of us out there. I pretty much give up on the whole pex issue. As long as its cheap and fast some plumbers and homeowners are going to flock to it like fleas to a dog. When the stuff begins to catastrophically fail ( and some has ) then everyone will be saying "see, I told you so"

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it is funny you mention about hardly anyone doing copper installs because I realized this last nite- I was at HD last nite picking up some cu tubing and noticed that the mfg date coding on a lot of them was from as far back as 2007. Obviously HD is not moving a lot of copper tubing these days.