got_nailed said:
Thank you Rugged. We needed that. What’s your response Gary?
What'd he say!! Where is what he said! I love to hear him rant and now I've missed it...
got_nailed said:
I know that I’m starting stuff but I do want to know what you will come up with.
He LOVES the money he makes on copper and he's scared to death of having a leak etc.. Didchya read where he busted a tub the other day and hid the damage while the lady stood there and saw the rock, or rocks, there were two of 'em, fall off the ceiling panel?
got_nailed said:
I have seen many studies on where plastic lets bacteria grow in its pores if it’s not made at the right temp.
I recently read those studies and then more showing copper allowed more bacteria growth than plastic when the test was run for a bit longer than it was for that original study.
got_nailed said:
I don’t like the manifold setup because if you need to add on then you’re off to snake a new feed. With copper if the installer will think for a few seconds before he installs the piping than adding on is a snap.
So if you need to feed a new fixture in the future, use the branch method instead of a difficult snaking. If the place is being added to as in a new addition, feed the new area with a new feed line to another manifold with homeruns.
got_nailed said:
How about having to stand there to let you have hot water at the sink when you just took a shower? That bugs the crap out of me.
The same happens with copper AND, copper allows heat loss much faster than any plastic... Or run your domestic hot water recirculation with PEX.
got_nailed said:
But then anion Gary do you mostly work on high end houses that have all the bells? Most of the work I do have hot water recirculation systems. Would you pleas show me a diagram for doing this in PEX and show me how it is more cost less than copper. And before you ask yes I have done it 3 times now.
"anion"? The only anion I know is in water treatment as in anion resins; they attract negative charged ions like sulfates, chlorides, Nitrate etc.. Softener resins are cation.
I'm not a plumber but anyone should be able to run a piece of PEX from a tub/shower/sink back to the water heater. Hell sparkies run Romex to/from 'em all the time; even gas and oil heaters, boilers etc.. I've done a lot of water treatment plumbing on potable water lines and well water systems and... I sell equipment all over the US into all types of houses, mostly new and nearly new and some are very large. My record is 5.5 bathrooms and some of them with large two person with 6 body spray showers. More and more have PEX for potable water lines and hydronic heat systems.
More and more people with branch and tee PEX, don't like it, and get upset when they find out after the fact, that it takes so much less time and fittings but they were charged as you charge for it. They usually know of the plumber or who it was and they won't be calling him for a long time into the distant future. I'm just the messenger here ya know... I get into the type of plumbing to help my customer do his DIY install of the equipment. To me, without getting into the water quality issues of copper, if you're running branch'n tee, I say stay with copper. But, expect to constantly lose business.
Now as to my guess of what my good buddy DUNBAR PLUMBER, aka RUGGED, may have said.... He should be told that all industries change in time. Plumbing is changing like we gave up horses for cars, even when there wasn't so much as one mile of road like in the whole country! And going faster than 10 mph would kill us because it would suck the air out of our lungs! Wodd and then lead pipe and such was replaced by galvanized and then that was replaced by copper. Plastic is replacing copper. My excavator SIL told me on Sat that a plumber that he does excavation for said his price for a 100' roll of K copper was $497. I said why not a 500' roll of 1" 160 or 200 psi rated PE pipe for like $140 (it's been awhile so maybe I'm low on that $100 or so). He would sell a lot more water line replacements IF he'd offer/sell PE instead of only quoting copper. And he'd reduce his costs and the customers' costs and still have enough to do 3-4 more 100' jobs with... word on the street gets around very fast, and bad word of mouth gets going and travels faster than any good words.