Rehau PEX any good?

Continuing my progress in getting quotes for a repipe and found a highly reputable plumber who uses Rehau PEX. I hadn't heard of this brand until he mentioned it last night.

Just wondering if anybody has any info on this brand. Good? Very good? Stay away? Before I heard of Rehau, I thought Wirsbo/Uponor was the way to go.

Any thoughts would be great.

Thanks.

It depends on your water and how it likes brass.

Redwood said:

It depends on your water and how it likes brass.

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Can you explain what that means to a layperson? Our water is relatively hard, but we plan on eventually installing a water softener once we get the pipe issue resolved. Thanks for any help or clarification you or someone else can provide.

It means that the best material to use for a plumbing system varies widely across the country...

Depending on the water conditions where you are and how it reacts to various materials used would have a direct what is the best material to use.

For instance in Las Vegas the water there virtually brought several different brands of PEX to their knees and the installing plumbers as well when the water in Las Vegas attacked the brass fittings used on PEX. This same problem has occurred in other areas of the country as well. Interestingly enough if copper was used the plumbing system would not have been attacked and would have had a long service life. The problem was related to the zinc content in the brass fitting leaching out of the metal due to the water conditions.

Now if you move across the country to Florida there are some areas where copper pipe works great and has a long service life but in the next county it would last only 5 - 10 years...
In those areas CPVC and PEX are used...

The key is wherever you are, the materials used must be compatible with your water.

So then...
Does your water like brass?

Thanks for the detailed reply. I guess I'll have to talk to the plumber regarding the fittings and what he thinks about the water here in Houston.

Oh, forgot to ask one more thing: Are these brass fittings specific to Rehau PEX or is this an issue with any type of PEX (specifically Aqua PEX that I mentioned in my original post)? The plumber mentioned how they do something like "extruding" the PEX through the fitting or something like that.

I guess I kinda am getting back to my original question of Rehau vs. Wirsbo/Uponor.

Thanks.

The fittings used vary between brands, Brass, Dezincification Resistant Brass, Bronze and Plastic are used.

Redwood said:

The fittings used vary between brands, Brass, Dezincification Resistant Brass, Bronze and Plastic are used.

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The fittings to be used with the Rehau PEX are Hydro-PEX Sherlock DZR Brass Fitting:

http://www.h-a-s.com/default.html

My understanding is that the zinc content needs to be less than 15% (or 19%) for these to be truly resistant to dezincification. I can't find any documentation on the zinc content of these particular brass fittings, though.