Lee_Leses
Member
Hello All:
I'm dealing with a crawlspace in a NJ home. On top of it all, there has been a drain system leak for years from the 1.5" copper kitchen drain pipe at the main stack, and so there is a lot of raw sewage down there. It's nasty!
I want to get in and get out as fast as possible! The pipes were poorly grounded, and it's well water. It was installed in the 80's I think. There is no ground strap at the hot water heater. A lot of the copper fittings are badly corroded. There is only a kitchen sink, washer, and one bathroom. I'm thinking of starting fresh, and doing the whole thing in pex. I want to put a cold water shutoff valve and the whole house filter up in the main living space. Right now to shut off the water you have to go into the crawlspace!
I have been reading a lot, I never did pex before.
QUESTIONS:
I have not physically gone to Lowes yet, but online it looks like they carry Vanguard Pex. Lowes carries Sharkbite brand pex. I have not seen any comments on Sharkbite pex, I know about the Zurn issues though. I also know most people seemed to feel safest with the Vanguard pex.
1) Has anyone used the Sharkbite pex to know if it is any good or not?
2) The manifolds I saw at depot just had connections on them, no shutoff valves. I thought one of the pex concepts was if you homerun it everything can be shut off individually. Shouldn't each connection on the manifold have it's own shutoff valve right at the manifold. Sure you could add one right at each manifold connection, but that is more connections. It seems to me the shutoff valves should thread right into the manifolds or something?
3) I saw a Sharkbite brand valve that you go into with pex and come out of with 3/8" faucet supply hose. What is the correct way or a good way to secure that under the sink or vanity? Do you just strap the valve to some wood or something where the valve is located?
4) What is the correct way to connect the toilet? I guess one way is to just cut the copper in the crawspace, solder on a pex fitting, and do the transition that way. Is there a better or different way?
5) It looks like all the needed tools to work with the Sharkbite pex is on the shelf with the rest of the Sharkbite pex fittings. The go, no go tool is there, a crimp ring cutter, and three different tools you could chose to do the crimping. There is also the cheap-o tool that you use a vise grips to compress. On sharkbite.com, I see there is a special type of handle you can buy for one of the crimpers I saw in stock at depot so you can crimp one-handed. Has anyone used these tools to be able to say which of the crimping tools by Sharkbite would be the easiest/best to use?
6) It may be that some of these tools are for the copper rings, and some are for the stainless steel rings. Does anyone have any reason that the copper rings are better than the stainless ones? Both types are sold by Sharkbite, which I find confusing. Why have two types if only one type is needed? I get the impression that with the stainless steel rings one tool will compress various sizes of rings. although it also looks like some but not all of the copper crimper tools can also compress various sizes of rings too.
7) Anyone have any opinions on the cancer causing thing with pex? It seems silly to me. It seems to me also that if you were going to drink the water or use it for cooking that running the water for a minute or so would flush out anything that "leached" into the water that was sitting in the pex.
8) Do they make a compression fitting I can use in the crawlspace to convert down there from 1/2" copper to pex? Does this method work well? It's tight down there I really don't want to solder.
9) Has anyone had issues with rodents and pex?
Can someone straighten me out on these issues? <!>
Lee
I'm dealing with a crawlspace in a NJ home. On top of it all, there has been a drain system leak for years from the 1.5" copper kitchen drain pipe at the main stack, and so there is a lot of raw sewage down there. It's nasty!
I want to get in and get out as fast as possible! The pipes were poorly grounded, and it's well water. It was installed in the 80's I think. There is no ground strap at the hot water heater. A lot of the copper fittings are badly corroded. There is only a kitchen sink, washer, and one bathroom. I'm thinking of starting fresh, and doing the whole thing in pex. I want to put a cold water shutoff valve and the whole house filter up in the main living space. Right now to shut off the water you have to go into the crawlspace!
I have been reading a lot, I never did pex before.
QUESTIONS:
I have not physically gone to Lowes yet, but online it looks like they carry Vanguard Pex. Lowes carries Sharkbite brand pex. I have not seen any comments on Sharkbite pex, I know about the Zurn issues though. I also know most people seemed to feel safest with the Vanguard pex.
1) Has anyone used the Sharkbite pex to know if it is any good or not?
2) The manifolds I saw at depot just had connections on them, no shutoff valves. I thought one of the pex concepts was if you homerun it everything can be shut off individually. Shouldn't each connection on the manifold have it's own shutoff valve right at the manifold. Sure you could add one right at each manifold connection, but that is more connections. It seems to me the shutoff valves should thread right into the manifolds or something?
3) I saw a Sharkbite brand valve that you go into with pex and come out of with 3/8" faucet supply hose. What is the correct way or a good way to secure that under the sink or vanity? Do you just strap the valve to some wood or something where the valve is located?
4) What is the correct way to connect the toilet? I guess one way is to just cut the copper in the crawspace, solder on a pex fitting, and do the transition that way. Is there a better or different way?
5) It looks like all the needed tools to work with the Sharkbite pex is on the shelf with the rest of the Sharkbite pex fittings. The go, no go tool is there, a crimp ring cutter, and three different tools you could chose to do the crimping. There is also the cheap-o tool that you use a vise grips to compress. On sharkbite.com, I see there is a special type of handle you can buy for one of the crimpers I saw in stock at depot so you can crimp one-handed. Has anyone used these tools to be able to say which of the crimping tools by Sharkbite would be the easiest/best to use?
6) It may be that some of these tools are for the copper rings, and some are for the stainless steel rings. Does anyone have any reason that the copper rings are better than the stainless ones? Both types are sold by Sharkbite, which I find confusing. Why have two types if only one type is needed? I get the impression that with the stainless steel rings one tool will compress various sizes of rings. although it also looks like some but not all of the copper crimper tools can also compress various sizes of rings too.
7) Anyone have any opinions on the cancer causing thing with pex? It seems silly to me. It seems to me also that if you were going to drink the water or use it for cooking that running the water for a minute or so would flush out anything that "leached" into the water that was sitting in the pex.
8) Do they make a compression fitting I can use in the crawlspace to convert down there from 1/2" copper to pex? Does this method work well? It's tight down there I really don't want to solder.
9) Has anyone had issues with rodents and pex?
Can someone straighten me out on these issues? <!>
Lee
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