Crimped copper connections?

InspectorGadget

InspectorGadget

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I was just at a local parade of homes and one of the $1,000,000+ houses had lots of interesting plumbing to look at.

One thing that I had not seen before was a 2" supply from the city for a single residence. The other thing was crimped copper fittings. I think that these fittings were about 1.5" diameter and I did not see any evidence of solder on these fittings. Upon closer examination, each joint appeared to be hexagonial in shape with some obvious tool marks on each joint from some sort of crimper.

I have not seen anything posted here about such connections and was just wondering if one of the more experienced guys could shed some light on this.
 
I think I saw that on "This Old House". One of the pros will probably have some thoughts...
 
hj said:
They were ProPress fittings. Expensive, but handy in certain situations. For a $1,000,000+ they can have any size service pipe they want.
Click to expand...

I use nothing but propress ... cuts my install time in half. This is a picture of a 90 degree L that I sectioned to show the o-ring that many are skeptical of. Notice that it actually is compressed after assembly so that the oring has a surface contact of almost 1/8". Also notice the dimples in the tubing that prevent rotation and pullout ...

78c4.jpg
 
First time I used 'em I wasn't sure but they didn't leak and this was under considerable pressure. A mechanical room of an apt. complex.
 
Pipe sizing

As far as the 2" copper supply it could be for the fixture demand
load but also could be for fire protection sprinklers in house
 
Didn't someone say that sprinklers (fire protection) may become part of the national codes? Depending on the type installed, they're kind of useless unless you have a large potential supply.
 
sprinklers

When sprinklers work as designed you DO NOT need a large water supply because only the ones in the burning area activate. It is not like the movies where you set one off and the entire building gets flooded.
 
99k said:
I have also seen them used for plumbing the fill and vent lines for home heating oil.
Click to expand...

That's not code. Fill and vent lines have to have a swing joint where the vertical meets the horizontal. Ridgid piping is a no no.
 
It's like magic isn't it? One head goes off and the whole damn building is flooded. And every car that crashes explodes and burns. Hollywood :rolleyes:
 
Yes, only the head that gets hot enough will turn on and hopefully, the fire is localized, but local codes may trump sanity. In the town next door, when you have sprinklers, they require a large supply. A smoky fire could spread a ways before it flared up (say someone opened a door) before it got hot enough to trip the sprinklers, and you might need a bunch of them at that time. talk to someone who designs the systems and follow their instructions as to what is required along with the local codes.
 
InspectorGadget said:
I was just at a local parade of homes and one of the $1,000,000+ houses had lots of interesting plumbing to look at.

One thing that I had not seen before was a 2" supply from the city for a single residence. The other thing was crimped copper fittings. I think that these fittings were about 1.5" diameter and I did not see any evidence of solder on these fittings. Upon closer examination, each joint appeared to be hexagonial in shape with some obvious tool marks on each joint from some sort of crimper.

I have not seen anything posted here about such connections and was just wondering if one of the more experienced guys could shed some light on this.
Click to expand...

Inspector,
2 years ago we had a System 2000 EK-1 boiler by Energy Kinetics installed and the tech, Rob Obrien, used Propress. It's quite a system, and what a time saver.

There are a few documented cases of them leaking when used in Glycol systems, and if you go over to The Wall at http://forums.invision.net/index.cfm?CFApp=2 and do a search, there's plenty of fodder.

Incidentally, we reduced our oil consumptions from 1230 to 790 gallons a year since the new system got put in. Perfect timing! Quiet as a gas burner or a microwave, by the way......

HE
 
We built our home in the unincorporated area of San Diego County in 2006. We where required to have a Min. 1" meter and 2" supply line from meter to house due to the fire sprinkler design requirements.
 
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