How to Replace Polybutylene Piping with PEX | Ask This Old House
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- Опубліковано 2 жов 2024
- Ask This Old House plumbing and heating expert Richard Trethewey travels to Richmond, Virginia to help a homeowner replace her polybutylene piping with conventional PEX
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Time: 6-7 hours
Cost: $5,000 and up
Skill Level: Professional
Tools List for Replacing Polybutylene Pipes with PEX:
PEX pipe cutter [amzn.to/2qfjEzp]
PEX expansion tool [amzn.to/2CRKSyA]
Shopping List:
PEX pipe [amzn.to/2ppPvg6] and fittings [amzn.to/2O06Ju5]
Steps:
1. Start by identifying and locating the pipes in the wall. Your contractor should devise ways to remove the pipes while minimally disrupting the space.
2. Cut access holes where necessary to remove the pipes.
3. Shut the water off to the house and open all the faucets in the house to remove any water remaining in the pipes.
4. Cut and remove all the polybutylene piping from the house.
5. Run new PEX piping through all the locations where the polybutylene used to be.
6. Connect the pipes using PEX fittings and the expansion tool.
7. Turn the water back on.
Resources:
Polybutylene pipes are no longer to code and need to be replaced by a licensed professional. Richard was assisted by Capital Mechanical (www.capitalmech....
The tools and materials required to replace the pipes, including the PEX lines, fittings, and the expansion tool, can all be found at home centers and plumbing supply houses. The PEX piping for this project was supplied by Uponor (www.uponor-usa....
About Ask This Old House TV:
Homeowners have a virtual truckload of questions for us on smaller projects, and we're ready to answer. Ask This Old House solves the steady stream of home improvement problems faced by our viewers-and we make house calls! Ask This Old House features some familiar faces from This Old House, including Kevin O'Connor, general contractor Tom Silva, plumbing and heating expert Richard Trethewey, and landscape contractor Roger Cook.
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Keywords: Ask This Old House, Richard Trethewey, plumbing, pipes, polybutylene, PEX
Watch the full episode:
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How to Replace Polybutylene Piping with PEX | Ask This Old House
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Sounds like he said "are you dead?" "I am!"
Blaine Bugaski 🤣🤣
This is exactly what I heard so I was glad to see that lady coming out in good shape.
Zombies don't want that nasty PolyB either.
I honestly thought he said “are you deaf?” I hear that way too much
That’s what I heard as well!😂😂😂
3:15 he just closed ole boy in the crawl space
Finally, a plumber that doesn't cut wavy holes in the drywall. Most plumbers just cut away, not thinking about the dude that patches it. I charge more for those patches and it should come out of the plumbers bill.
David FP we like to get comfortable
I've had a plumber use a hammer to open holes in drywall when he was looking for a pipe...those were a pain to fix.
@@zivan56 Haha! I can picture him doing it
zivan56 sometimes a hammer is better it's just the wall it could be your electrical with a saw
FYI, "the plumber" did not build these structures. If you are going to put plumbing in that will be covered by drywall, you better use the right materials - installed per code. Older structures that have CI, Galvanized, copper, or even CPVC (yes I have seen this), there is no choice but to remove drywall material to facilitate the replacement.
3:14 did he just close the door on the plumbing contractor Travis? lmao
I'm so glad to see him install EXPANSION fittings onto that PEX as those have a much larger internal diameter than crimped/clamped PEX fittings. Expansion fittings together with PEX-A, are the future of plumbing these days.
Zurn makes a similar system using PEX-B. But you have to use their PEX-B as regular PEX-B won't expand. PEX-B is apparently a bit more durable than PEX-A.
Good stuff. I had polybutylene lines in my old house and they totally went to crap.
I bought a Pex crimper for $50 and probably saved $1500 in labor (easily - prolly more than that)
The pipes you have and the crimps are not the same pipes as the expandable pex
@@billybob042665 what does the tool do? Heat it? Stretch it?
@@franksquires8151 stretch it, it’s called cold expansion
First line I heard was "Are you dead?" And of course she answers with "I am!". Threw me off 🤣
Neat test with the heat gun. Now try it with copper pipe.
Richard is the Carl Sagan of plumbing. What I'd give to learn a trade or two from a guy like this. Amazing.
Just use copper. Polly Pex. All cheap crap. 🤦🏻♂️. Been a licensed plumber in NJ FOR 25 years. I can say with certainty that any new pipe system that will come out will also be crap. Copper works and lasts people need to worry less about cheap and fast and worry more on craftsmanship and quality 🤦🏻♂️
@Vince Black I’d love to use copper to replace the old galvanized pipe - but we have Colorado River water where I am. It’s notorious for causing pinhole leaks in copper.
@@edbouhl3100 is that due to the pH?
Doug Owens Because plastic becomes brittle overtime and fails way sooner then copper. Property installed copper on city water will last 100 years. Also copper is antibacterial. Plastic prompt bacteria growth. In the 70 s there was a huge class action law suit on pex pipe. Back then it was. Called Quest. Different name slightly different chemical compound but the same
Diy Guy Buy type K COPPER. You won’t find in any Home Depot tho. Only a supply house. It will last decades
@Vince Black Thicker copper pipe won’t fail as soon but it’s still subject to the same corrosion. Here’s an article on the problem in one area:
www.ocregister.com/2015/08/02/judge-tosses-out-lawsuit-on-south-county-copper-pipe-leaks/
The Colorado River picks up a lot of mineral salts from the rock types in its drainage area. Here’s an excerpts from one study talking about its effect on various stainless steel types (which are generally more corrosion resistant than copper pipe):
“Results in Potable Water--
While stainless steels have been tested under a variety of conditions in
the chemical process industry and laboratory, relatively few direct tests in potable water systems have been reported. Results have been reported for Type 410 and Type 316 in Southern California waters including treated Colorado River water (96). Type 410 was stable in four aqueduct and well waters, but was very severely corroded by pitting in both treated and untreated Colorado River water. Since pH and dissolved 02 were nearly the same in most cases, the reason for increased corrosivity of the Colorado River water may have been its high chloride content (85 ppm) relative to the other waters (16-28 ppm). Type 316 was completely undamaged in any of the waters (96).”
nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyPDF.cgi/9100CILD.PDF?Dockey=9100CILD.PDF
PB piping... Yeah, I remember Bob f-ing Vila right here on TOH championing it.... Thanks a lot guys as I'm replacing my own pb pipes......
I don’t know why I like this episode so much. I think it’s because of how well the homeowner is at explaining the problem, and Richard explaining the differences between the 2 types of pipes. Good job.
How to replace it? Rip it all out and use COPPER! What do you think is going to happen to that PEX or PVC in 30 years? Same f*cking thing!
What are you smoking my man, PEX will easily last a 100 years. COPPER on the other hand will corroded and develop pin hole leaks long before PEX fails.
I just did this in a house. This video would have been helpful about a week ago. Thanks for sharing!
I’m a moron! Haha I’m working on videos now for somethings.
The plumbing contractor every time said “ yes sir”
I have been plumbing since 1991, coincidentally enough, and I actually learned something from this video after using PEX the majority of the time.
Hey Richard could you please do a pro's and cons between pex a and pex b? I'm about to replace all my first floor plumbing and I'm about to start getting all my supplies.
What if he was like, "lol No Deb, you cannot take care of the drywall repair in your ceiling."
They always choose the easiest scenarios for these shows.
Def not true
Re-piping an entire home is not an easy endeavor. Uponor pro does make it go faster and smother than Pex b.
Def true
@Tekagi yeah, and they did it with cpvc... Junk.
Yeah, it would be much better to choose a project they wouldn't be able to successfully film in the time allotted.
I don't think you understand their business model.
Finally, Last time they did this they replaced all the pipe with cpvc- also junk. This is a good quality installation.
Glenn Holcomb allot wrong with it, it gets very hard and brittle I just took allot out from my house, you could crack and break it with your fingers
@Glenn Holcomb Its crap that has been recalled over and over, plus its incompatible with chlorinated water.
@@ozziesheppard17 that's not at all correct, CPVC is quite durable and is even used in industry in harsh chemical applications. CPVC or "chlorinated" PVC is completely compatible with chlorinated water...
@@mikecooper03 You are completely wrong, Go back to the backyard handyman stuff and let us real contractors get back to work. On a commercial level this stuff caused huge issues a few years back when a bunch of fire suppression systems started having pipes shatter that were made out of this- Destroying apartments and light commercial space.
@Ozzie Sheppard CPVC became a common standard for it's ease of install, but PEX didn't really become common until all the issues with CPVC (aside from ever freezing) began cropping up.
I'm glad they update their videos with the new standards and highlighting why people should switch from some of the "bad" home building standards over the years, but definitely could've done this one 5+ years ago!
Fyi..Expansion fittings are intended for use with PEX-A tubing only, using expansion connection method, not pex B
You can use expansion on zurn pex b. It's not the a vs b is the manufacturer vs other manufacturer
What is nice about PEX-a is, it is very less likely for the pipe itself to fail. If it leaks, it will be at the joint and even that usually will be the installation error. Also, if the pipe freezes, PEX will expend and contract when thawed without cracking. If the fitting freezes, it may still crack since fittings are made with hard plastic or brass.
Her acting skills are on point 👌🏽
I'm glad Richard knows how to pronounce potable the right way.
"potable", that's when it can be easily transported from one place to another, right?
l337pwnage it’s water you can drink and shower in
good for 100 to 150 years or until a rat is thirsty. which ever is 1st
Here in the uk most common fittings on plastic pipe are push fit.... JG SPEEDFIT or Hep2o etc....... or buteline system which clamps/compress the connector fittings to the pipe. Also in the information on the specification of the copper pipe says 1 year guarantee, whereas the plastic pipe says 25 years or more, you could use ten different plumbers and they would not agree on which is the best. While some would get either the cheapest or what is in stock at the nearest dealership
The fittings shown in this video are proprietary to a company called Uponor. They can only be used for PEX-A pipes. Their advantage over regular PEX fittings is they are the same inner diameter as the pipe so you don't get any resistance.
Zurn makes a similar system but you have to use their own version of PEX-B that is expandable. Regular PEX-B won't expand.
All plastic pipe won't last more than 20 years, especially if sunlight exposed.
Buy house with copper pipe only or you'll be 😐 $$$$$$
I bought a house (built in '65) in southwest Michigan a few years ago. When I installing a water filter, I found PB in the basement. A handyman who grew up in the area came over to help me replaced the PB that had been added in the '80s (we used copper). He said there was a good chance the line from the street was PB because he knew that's when many of the houses around us went from wells to city water. I am saving my pennies for that impending expense.
I mention this to remind everyone PB is not limited to the northwest and mid-Atlantic.
Why didn’t they show how the pex was replaced ?
Another thing to avoid: aluminum electrical wiring. When I was house hunting my father looked at the circuit breaker box and saw aluminum wiring and said it was a fire hazard. Realtor either didn't know this or said nothing. Next house!
@Bosphorus32 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminum_building_wiring#Problems_with_aluminum_wiring
Matt Foley not sure if you are agreeing or disagreeing with Bosphorous32... he did say *properly terminated* AL wiring, and that article is all about properly termination.
@@jpe1 Knowledge is power.
You ultimately decided to live in a VAN DOWN BY THE RIVER!
I sold electrical supplys for 11 years and some manufatures of load centers used cast aluminum buss bars (what the breaker makes connection with) and some had copper buss bars. I prefer copper because aluminum corroded easier and that corrosion forms an insulation which builds up heat and could lead to a fire.
Heat copper pipe and try to pull it apart. We can wait.
Yes sir. Copper is the way to go!
AWWWWW YIS REPRESENTING THE 804!
(Richmond native lol)
yeah nah. I'll keep my lead-free soldered copper pipes thanks. In a recent paper from Purdue no less than sixteen organic chemicals were identified leaching out of PEX pipe into water, including toluene, pyridine, ethyl-tert-butyl ether, methylene trichloroacetate and 2,4-di-tert-butyl, often pushing tap water over chemical odor threshold limits. So yeah, you go head 'n enjoy that for the next 40 years you'll be drinking it.
Everyone swears by PEX. But they're already doing replacements on it in the Northwest where it was used early on. And in 20 years of work in the Midwest, I've seen PEX failures almost as often as copper even with copper being far more widespread.
Tube failure or fitting failure or both?
Richard should have gone into the different kinds of Pex (A, B, and C) just a little so someone doesn't go out and buy the wrong fittings for the wrong pipe. Pex is almost the best thing since sliced bread... Just my 2 cents.
A homeowner should not take on that job definitely a job for a journeyman plumber.
@@91cobra50 some homeowners I would definitely agree. Although, a lot of others will do their homework and get most of the correct stuff. Besides, I don't mind getting paid to fix their stuff. 😉
@@91cobra50 Bah! Why not? The hard way is the most effective way to learn.
Thank god, uponor pex a. Better than the pex b from homedepot and that cpvc garbage
xXAnchormonXx,
What makes pex A so much better than pex B? I’ve never seen pex A used in my state. I’ve never seen a pex B failure.
Funny how there is an obvious continuity problem.
All three of them are wearing the same clothes from start to finish of the "job". They try to make it look like Richard was there at the start, then returned at the end of the job. The reality would have been the TOH film crew came on the job for a few hours to film the video, then left.
So lots of information but they didn't teach us any dyi insight. More like a pex commercial.
Pex is garbage, and plumbers would admit it if they were willing to look past the increase to profit margins pex created.
I have seen very few pex failures... but on copper... a lot of pin holes from the early 2000s and that poly b... just trash. Pvc and cpvc is good, but for the cost i think pex is better. Only down fall to pex is that you do need an expensive tool.
But i have seen rats eat the pex if you use rat poison. .. and it cant stand sunlight
@@JcP3737Without a doubt I've seen more CPVC failures than pex. With city water that's cloronated, CPVC gets hard and brittle over time and will shatter. Pex will now.
Saying it has been used in heating is not the same as used in plumbing. Heating is a closed loop system. Chlorine and other elements are minimized in a closed loop system. You can even add additives to enhance plastics and metals in a closed loop system.
The heat gun test is meaningless. There is no evidence that the heat gun duplicates typical usage over time. And there is no evidence the types of failures have anything to do with the kind of failures in real practice. The only way to get the truth is to compare both plastics in the same real-life conditions over time.
He was just showing how they're different even though they look similar.
Well, certainly not MEANINGLESS, but maybe doesn't prove that Pex is awesome.
热风枪测试的确毫无意义，这更像是一种侮辱智商的做法，在中国这样做会被笑成傻瓜，任何塑料加热都是类似的效果，这证明不了什么，这个视频更像是一部喜剧
“Shudders” poly... the devils plumbing
My motorhome had it; was a royal pain in the rear to remove.
Now try and pull apart a copper 1/2" pipe
The opening of this episode reminds me of TV “antique roadshow” where it always starts with an old lady presenting her beloved treasure and a story about how her father got it during his trip to Europe .
I thought Richard asked her if she was dead 🤣🤣🤣
That's fine that the one is tougher, but I'd bet you'd have pull even harder to pull a copper pipe apart. amirite?
It would be so messed up if we found out PEX wasnt as good as we thought.
It will fail. Why gamble when copper has been proven for over 100 years. Comes down to it being cheaper and easier to install.
At one time there was Class Action Law suit on that pipe I file a claim and they did my whole house to CPVC for zip. Around 2001
CPVC is just another disaster waiting to happen. They become brittle over time, especially when used with very hot water. I have seen many of those develop pin hole leaks or crack.
Cpvc is mainly for drainage
@@thecloneguyz You might be confusing PVC with CPVC
You replaced one time bomb for another. Not good. 🙁
@@YuriyRusko They stopped using cpvc in 2004 for supply lines - especially hot water...
Now its mostly used for cold water/ drain
They always call a local plumber from the area since the local guy is licensed there already
RED TAPE for slaves
Where's the how to? TOH have you become click bait?
It certainly showed you how to connect the Pex which was super helpful for me.
So this was a nice video but it's not really a how-to or a tutorial.
i almost read polybutthole pipes
25 years from now- replace the pex
My 100 year old house- copper
I have a question. Why not just use weld joints instead of using these shitty crimp fittings? Thats like one of the biggest advantages of PB, that it is fully weldable. Or was the quality of the pipes made by Quest company so bad, that it wasnt even wealdable?
I hate polybutylene piping. The reason is as simple as anything. I once had to go into a greenhouse that had both irrigation sprinklers and fire suppression sprinklers, both of which were plumbed with polybutylene. Once, the polybutylene pipe for the fire sprinklers had started to melt under the heat, not enough to trigger a flow switch or anything. And, it didn't show up on the water meter by the street. Yet, I clearly see it. I had to rip it all out and put in new piping.
The thing about polybutylene piping is that if you have a leak inside the wall, it is second to being impossible to detect. Leaking polybutylene piping does not show up on a water meter or a flow switch or anything. Making matters worse, most greenhouses, homes, and such are framed with wood. If that wood gets wet, is allowed to stay wet unchecked, it can develop black mold. Black mold can spread from wood to other things and render the building unsafe.
Man I love this show
Apart from cost why run it so you have to have connections inside ceilings and walls?
Seems to me consistent single runs to each fixture would be optimum. You aren't limited like you were with copper this stuff bends so you can pull 5 feeds from one location.
Nothing wrong with it and also where theres a Ts you have no choice but to use fittings.
@Eric Knowles thank you for your response.
If finance were not an issue I would still want to have no fittings inside of walls. Just a manifold at my building entry point. Of course we would cheap out and have a "T" for two fixtures that are back to back.
Kind of like North American way of running electricity, verses UK way of doing it.
Yea I get that but I'm speaking on a house that's not opened up in the rough in process. In this case I believe there is absolutely nothing wrong with putting Ts in the ceiling. I install Ts on new houses. Nothing wrong with it at all in my opinion. :)
@Eric Knowles, 👌 😃
Nothing wrong with it, I don't dispute it.
I was mainly wondering why keep the concept of running pipe the way was done with lead or copper, when we now have the technology to make a single runs and don't have to do branch runs.
Yea I guess just for the last ten years I'm so used to running fittings and not thinking anything of it. I do try to use bends as much as I can. I honestly just do it with fittings so it looks better and neat personally!
This video is so misleading. How about the connections at the shut off valves? And the pipes that transition from the ceiling to the walls? They makes it sound like it's a 4-Hour job.
How much cost to do 2 bathroom all the way an shower an withtub jacuzzi one bathroom has doble sink other bathroom Is normal bathroom with kitchen sink 3 water valve outside laundry water heater installed in texas thanks for ur time.
In the UK we use polybutylene in our homes with no problems.
Sounds like she wanted copper pipe
PLEASE DON'T BREATHE that melting plastic.
Richard Trethewey rocks!
Two previous homes had PB plumbing. The first oneI l lived in it a couple of years and the latter on, built in 1991 I lived in it 11 years. Unlike a few of my neighbors, I had no failure incidences. As I understand it, it was the reaction between chlorine in the water supply and the chemical that causes the pipes to degrade. Shell Oil Company lost big time in a class action lawsuit because the minimum chlorine concentration in a typical wayer supply exceeds a concentration level that would degrade the material.
My present house has PEX plumbing and I have not heard of any problems wit it. What I like about it is to make bumbling changes. Inlike in the video, I have used stainless steel rings to secure the fittings in place using an inexpensive clamping tool. Ryobi even makes a cordless power tool that secure the stainless steel ring.
If chlorine was there problem then I wonder why after less than 10 years I had PB failure in a wall when I was on well water with no chlorine at all. Hmmmm.
@@jimjordan5630 was your failure on the hot water side?
Which crimp bands did you have, aluminum or copper?
@@russellsmith3825 I've had two failures in two different mobile homes. Birth were on the cold water side the best my memory serves me. One was the tubing alone and the other was a split fitting as well as a split in the tubing.
They used PEX-A cold expansion pipe and unions, not clamps. That's for PEX-B which isn't as flexible and can break if installed in a colder climate where the water could freeze.
I have a 1984 mobile home that had always been hooked up to a well, thus no chlorine at all had ever been run through there plumbing. By 1995 it had 2 PB pipe failures (splits) and 1 during failure, also a split. JS
michael browns poured joint
matthew brothers head anoint
emfn joynt
In China and Europe they still use those, just thicker pipe walls and fusing them together with heating tool
确实如此，在中国我们的水管都是upvc和ppr的，我们没有用压接方法，而是热熔连接，到目前很少出现在漏水问题，我们大部分住宅都是6层及以上的建筑，压接的方法连接管路多年之后问题会非常大，无法避免不漏水。我想说漏水实际上不是poly b的问题，而是连接方法的问题。
I used polybutylene pipe when I built my house in 1988 and have never had any problems. One thing I did differently was *no* fittings inside walls, every pipe is a single piece from basement to fixture (the shower mixer valve is inside a wall, but that’s the only hidden connection).
Still no problems?
@@DomnSan nope, no leaks or other problems.
Usually poly pipes fail when on city water. City water has chlorine which deteriorates it. I have poly in my home coming out of the foundation and pipes are fine but on a well system. The plastic fittings are what’s giving me problems. It’s due to the hard water that my well is giving me.
Nice, i wish people said “Yes Sir” more often
I have never had a problem with my pb..over 25 years..
No mention of UV exposure problems. Did that turn out to be a 'chicken little' story?
Isnt the pipe in the walls so no light will hit it?
How to do it yourself = hire someone and then pay them
No one is forcing you to hire someone. If you feel you'd like to do the project yourself - have at it. Of course, to do it and meet the legal requirements you'll need a permit and final inspection of the work. That's one reason you hire a licensed plumber...but, again if you feel put upon by hiring someone - do it yourself.
Then show a fancy drill adaptor you don't even need to do the job.
Doug - depends on which type of PEX you are using.
If you are using the Uponor type (which was shown here) you need either a manual expander, or a powered expander that they used here. Uponor is not available in big box stores. One benefit of the Uponor fittings is that they don't restrict the internal dimension of the tubing, and possibly restrict the flow.
For the PEX you get at the big box stores, you can use either the rings that get squeezed from all sides (with something that looks like a pair of bolt cutters), or the type that crimps down a stainless steel ring with something akin to a long pair of pliers. (unless you want to use SharkBite connectors everywhere)
My question is. If the guy claimed he was a plumber then why didn’t he want to touch it? Shouldn’t he be qualified to deal with any plumbing situation if he’s a professional plumber?
The manufactured home industry used Polybutylene almost exclusively here in the NW in the ‘70-‘80’s.
I bought all of the old polybutylene fittings from the store 12 years ago when they discontinued it and now I charged astronomical amounts to fix poly butyl or give them the option of ripping it all out and they always go with the expensive fix
Same thing with the roof panels you can't buy them anymore so now I take them from old mobile homes and charged astronomical fees to fix the roof when the roofer puts his foot through the old panels
Aquapex is a very good system
Pex is so much more convenient and easy to work with. However, my state says it’s not code.
What state is that?
You have very simple pex tubes in the US. The PEX in my home here in Germany is reinforced with multiple layers, esp. with a layer of aluminium and an outer coating - super tough!
And super expensive to plumb a whole house with the layered Pex. Basic Pex when frozen take a lot of punishment. Why all the layers in Germany?
The PEX tubings you are referring to is called PEX-AL-PEX here in Canada. (AL for aluminium reinforcement)
@@siskens470 From my perspective as costumer only: To be as strong as the other kind of tubes? Copper, stainless steel - to use just "plastic" instead of heavy metal it needs to offer some strenght too ;-) You know, we germans have no problem to spend a good amount of money on our homes..
Yes I thought that too, I am also from Germany (an Architect btw) and these pipes are the least expensive kind of PEX overhere. I would only use multiple layered PEX with an aluminum layer in my house. The price is not that much higher anyway , especially if you compare it to the costs of replacing it prematurely. That being said, the regular PEX is still much better than the old plastic tubing. I still have the most faith in copper and steel tubing though. PEX has to show that it is better, lets see how it performs in 50 years.
@@DW7887 Ok. Watch some Matt Risinger videos where he freezes copper and different basic pex. The pex fair way better. It is pretty interesting. So I guess my point is basic pex is stronger than metal already. The multilayer pex must able to take a nuclear blast haha. Nothing wrong with over kill. I always do. It is kind of a sickness lol.
Yes Sir!
I bought a house in 1999 that had PB piping. Knew nothing about it and home inspector never mentioned it. Replaced all the piping with CPVC about 2 years later when the PB began to leak. Fortunately it was a single story on full basement that was finished with a drop ceiling.
How much did it cost you in total roughly
Somewhere at this very moment, the guy is still saying yes sir.
No need to replace. She has the good fittings. Unless the crimp band was improperly installed or the pipe froze without bursting which swells the crimp band later causing a slow leak - There should be no problems.
I read the same thing. 95% of problems were in the fittings. Early used PB fittings and steel bands. When they switched to copper fittings and bands, PB issues went away.
Did Richard just close that plumber in the crawl space?
Haha I noticed the same thing!
Richard in the thumbnail tho. Lol
Come on down a few hours south to the Raleigh area, I could use some help. Got polybutylene pipes down here too.
Over time any kind of pipe and fitting can fail.
The plumbers here in Florida used PB up until 1999 when it was outlawed. Even though it was known PB was a bad product back in the early 90's. These plumbers and home builders need to be sued as plumbers today are still dealing with this stuff in 2021. Lots of townhomes and mobile homes have PB piping here and some townhomes are in very affluent areas.
this stuff was also used in Southern California in the late 80's - early 90's.
We had a pipe burst in our downstairs bathroom several years ago and the split piece that was pulled out looked just like what Richard showed this lady. Connections and all.
We had our house re-piped about 2 weeks later with all copper.
I have 1991 house with Polybutylene Piping. I’m on a private well, no Chlorine in the water, but about every Four Months I “Shock” the Well, to kill the Iron Bacteria. The only Failures I’ve had are the various Brass Valves, and the short copper pipes at the Water Heater. The second time I replaced the Copper at the Water Heater I used “K” Copper, rather than “L” Copper.
Hey Richard redo the incoming water service pipe fitting, should not use clamps , use a pak joint fitting and do it Right!!!!
I got those pipes in my manufactured home. I don't care what anyone says copper is the best pipe. Cost doesn't matter. The same thing with the Ford Excursion best V10 gas engine I ever had. Safety is more important than saving money in gas.
I was going to use a heat gun on my Pb pipes because I thought it would be a fun thing to do. But after watching this episode, I'm so glad I didn't.
This plumbing company in their area is that guy in the yellow jacket rubbing his hands with all the polybutylene in the area.
Got my poly changed to pex today so thankful but that was a big bill😣
Any leaks yet?
@@flat-earther no it’s just fine
How much did it cost you?
I have the polybutylene plumbing in a 1970 Mobile home on southeren Vancouver Island and touch wood , no problems yet. The weather is not extreme. Mild summers and mild winters.Perhaps that has something to do with it?
Get it out now it's a ticking time bomb pex is best for mobile homes.
It's mainly chlorine that causes the poly to break down. If you're on a well and don't run chlorine through it's much less likely to have a problem.
On my mom's early 80s modular it was built with the early Qest pipes with aluminum crimp bands, they failed in the early 90s from thermal fatigue, the cold water is still good, but all the CPVC we replaced it with is shattered from freeze damage so we are replumbing the entire structure now.
One advantage of metal piping, whether it's copper water and heat pipes, or old school cast iron waste pipes as opposed to PVC, is that in the event of a fire they don't burn and give of noxious fumes like plastics.
If your house is on fire, do you really care about the environment or how good the burn is? Haha I know you will say something like it increases potential occupants chances to escape to not fall victim to gas and smoke inhalation, but I guess it might be just luck at that point.
We just finished a poly b replacement. It took 4.5 days for two journeyman plumbers. 400 feet of 1/2" PEX pipe 140' of 3/4 PEX pipe several dozen fittings hundreds of crimp rings. Not an easy job. Holes every where in the person's walls and ceiling.
Use copper not plastic
No thanks,I'll stick with copper..
A friend just replaced his pex in the ceiling of his house, lasted less than 10 years.
If she built the house herself, then why is she incapable of fixing the plumbing? Oh, maybe someone else really built it.
What if I use sharkbite push connector on a pex-a will it reduce the pressure
0:05 Are you dead? I ammm