Hello, I have a house built in the 70's in Texas with all copper lines, that we bought a few years ago. Our fridge has a water line that connects to fridge by flex braided line to a shut off valve at the hole in the wall. It's then a copper line that runs up the wall, in the attic over probably 8 feet then back down wall to kitchen island, under sink cabinet where it tees into cold water line with another shut off valve. Problem is we don't get excessively cold winters in texas but we have cold snaps and I've had a couple winters where water and ice quit in fridge because line froze up. After first year of doing this, I shut water off under kitchen sink to fridge, and opened the lines for the entire month of January so line would not freeze and split open causing a huge mess. Obviously this is safe but not ideal.
Since we are on a concrete slab only option I have is to work with walls and attic. I would like to have pex so it can withstand the cold temps in attic. I'm thinking along the lines of sweating in a T fitting in my laundry area that has a cutout in the drywall with a panel over it in my laundry room off kitchen, and have pex come off that T fitting, up wall, then over to wall fridge sits on, come down wall and put in I assume a plastic box like you would see with laundry hot/cold stubs, then from box with a 1/4 turn shut off a flex line going to fridge.
I can visualize this but not sure what I buy to put this together. I've never worked with pex but I believe the homeowner grade is the ratcheting clamp style connectors as opposed to the expand the pipe with a tool and put a band on or something. I've used sharkbites before and love then but really don't want to put those in the wall for the T fitting part.
I'm familiar with sweating copper so pretty sure I could handle that part. Could you give me some tips of what I'm looking to buy to put this together, and if my visual plan here seems solid.
Another option I suppose could be tapping off my cold water line in my garage water heating, punching a hole in the ceiling and then coming over to fridge wall. Just seems cleaner install the first idea I mentioned rather than this?
Appreciate the help.
Russ
Since we are on a concrete slab only option I have is to work with walls and attic. I would like to have pex so it can withstand the cold temps in attic. I'm thinking along the lines of sweating in a T fitting in my laundry area that has a cutout in the drywall with a panel over it in my laundry room off kitchen, and have pex come off that T fitting, up wall, then over to wall fridge sits on, come down wall and put in I assume a plastic box like you would see with laundry hot/cold stubs, then from box with a 1/4 turn shut off a flex line going to fridge.
I can visualize this but not sure what I buy to put this together. I've never worked with pex but I believe the homeowner grade is the ratcheting clamp style connectors as opposed to the expand the pipe with a tool and put a band on or something. I've used sharkbites before and love then but really don't want to put those in the wall for the T fitting part.
I'm familiar with sweating copper so pretty sure I could handle that part. Could you give me some tips of what I'm looking to buy to put this together, and if my visual plan here seems solid.
Another option I suppose could be tapping off my cold water line in my garage water heating, punching a hole in the ceiling and then coming over to fridge wall. Just seems cleaner install the first idea I mentioned rather than this?
Appreciate the help.
Russ
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