Polybutylene Advice

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Zorka

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Hello. I've been reading this forum for some time and am hoping to get some advice on my polybutylene plumbing.

I bought a house in Canada that was built in 1992 and has polybutylene plumbing (with copper fittings and crimp rings, not the plastic ones that apparently have more problems). Overall for the house there are 14 cold and 9 hot lines from a manifold in the basement. There are no current issues with the plumbing, but I am doing some extensive remodeling (kitchen, all bathrooms, hardwood) and am wondering if now is the time to switch to PEX, since I will be interacting in some way with all of the supply lines as I remodel the bathrooms and kitchen. It is a four level split and once I do the hardwood upstairs, it will be a lot more difficult to install the new lines, particularly to the ensuite.

I have read a lot on the internet that isn't exactly good for "peace of mind" (don't want to come home one day to water flowing through all levels of the house as it makes its way to the basement drain!), but information specific to Canada states that there isn't a real concern. So...I am wondering if now is the time to bite the bullet and switch everything over to PEX, or do I leave it alone and tie into it. If you recommend option 2 (leave it alone), I'd really appreciate some recommendations on the best fittings to use to tie into the existing poly-b lines, because I will definitely need to do that.

Thanks in advance everyone! Sorry for another poly-b question, but I am really looking for some advice on what to do at this critical point in my reno.



Edit: If you recommend re-plumbing with PEX, can you recommend the best make (for tubing and fittings)? I read that there are different quality levels and some that have more restrictive inner diameters for a given nominal size.

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Cookie

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Switching over to PEX would be good, but if it were my home, I would install copper.
 
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Zorka

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Thank you for the reply, Cookie. I will be limited to changing to PEX instead of copper since this is a retrofit and accessibility is not easy in certain areas. Having said that, do you have recommendations on any specific manufacturer for tubing as well as the manifold system? I will be putting separate shutoffs on each line out of the manifold.

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Cookie

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I think the other plumbers, if they wanted to, could chime in on what they use and could suggest by their own trials and tribulations.
 

Zorka

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Thanks Cookie.

Can anyone else chime in with some pex manifold/tubing recommendations? From my reading they all have their issues, but I'd prefer to go PEX than to tie into all of the PB that is existing, due to the inherent problems and limited selection/quality of fittings available.
 

Turbocruiser

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I always start any of my own answers here emphasizing non expert status but my home had PB plumbing and it caused a lot of little problems but thankfully it did not cause any big problems.

In my case my plumbing was almost all "Qest" (sp?) with the Qest (sp?) fittings and copper crimps. Oddly enough I don't think that any of the fittings failed but I had several small leaks like pinholes from the tubing itself. I chased leak after leak over the first two years we were in our home and then asked a family friend who's also a Master Plumber to replumb the house in copper. Since then things are much more reliable.

Although our house didn't have the manifold system several of our neighbor's houses did and they actually have had some pretty serious problems not with the manifold but either with the fittings or the compression crimps or the tubing. I know that is totally anecdotal but I'm just sharing in the hope it helps.

If I understand and actually remember things right, the PB was not very UV stable so if it sat outside at all it degraded. Then, the fittings were fragile (compared to copper) and the compression crimps and compression crimpers had to be accurately calibrated and used with utmost care to get the crimps aligned correctly.

I know you would rather run PEX through and that might be more than fine, I'm just also adding food for thought that removing one side of drywall isn't really that hard to handle and getting all the PB out (whether replacing with PEX or CU ) is gonna feel great. Good Luck.
 

Zorka

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Thank you very much to those who replied. I spent part of last weekend cutting parts of my subfloor open and tracing the polyb piping back to the manifold. I have traced all of the lines back to the manifold and (like turbocruiser said) it won't be too big of a deal to cut open the drywall in a few places (I will only need to do that in the ensuite to get at the shower, as well as two other bathrooms. I found a supplier of uponor/wirsbo tube and fittings in my area and will probably go that route. Just so I sleep extra well at night, I will be placing leak sensors at all of the connection points feeding back to an automatic shutoff system on the main water line. I figure it isn't hard to run a bit of thermostat wire if I'm running the tubing anyway.

I hear that the uponor system has a 25 year warranty with some coverage of damage caused by leaks (haven't looked into the details at this point), but only if put in by a trained installer. Does anyone know if it would apply if I did the tubing runs and had the installer do the connections using the proper technique? I rented the tool once before and didn't have any issues, but this might be a good one to 'leave to the pros' due to the potential damage of doing it wrong.
 

Redwood

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Us pro's usually have some repipe tricks up our sleeves that minimize the need for access holes.
The first is I would usually use sheetrock cuts for access vs. the flooring.
 

Zorka

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You are right Redwood, I'm sure there is always a 'good' way and a more destructive way of doing a repipe. Luckily (or by planning I guess) I'm doing the repipe before laying the hardwood, so floor access is easist right now. After taking a peek under the floor on the fourth (top) level, I found some nice easy paths that I can run the piping from the ensuite (furthest away from manifold, with seven supply lines). The other two bathrooms are directly above the manifold in the basement, so I should only need one or two access holes in the back wall of those rooms. Kitchen and two hose bibs are all accessible through the basement ceiling. Laundry room loops up from level 2 to level 4 as it is the only way of not going through an outside wall.
 

Doherty Plumbing

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PB is nasty nasty piping and if you have access to any of it you should replace it.

So yes replace every inch of it you can get your hands on!!!!!

If you're redo'ing the flooring you're much better off to cut out the floor, imo, because it's much easier to cut pieces of ply wood to lay back a new sub floor then it is to cut open ceilings down below and do a bunch of drywall repairs. That's just my personal 2 cents though. This is a decesion i'd usually leave up to the home owner.

As for manifold, or "home run" systems I don't really like them, especially in poly-b. Only because they greatly increase the amount of piping you have in your house (hence why I don't like them in poly-b especially). However if you have low water pressure or whatever they're a good solution to that.
 

Zorka

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Thanks again for the advice. I'm now at a time where I can deal with it and I intend on pulling out every inch of it. All of the horizontal runs I can get at through the floor of the fourth level or the ceiling of the basement. Apart from that, I will need to cut drywall to access the vertical run to the basement and perhaps a access hole behind each of the three shower valves. no too bad overall. The jet tub has a removable access cover, which is good news.

So, I will be going with Uponor pex-a most likely since I have read the best things about it (or have read the least bad things about it, if you want to look at it that way!). The homerun system is something I like because I would have the least amount of fittings, no concealed connections (except for the shower valves), and I can add my leak detection system at the connection points as an additional safety measure. The furthest run will be in the 40'-50' range (to the ensuite) and the other two bathrooms will be in the 10'-15' range, which is good. There is a slight delay currently for hot hater, but not too significant.

Having said this, I do appreciate your comments against the homerun system. Would you recommend a trunk and branch system in Uponor (or other Pex) tubing?
 

Zorka

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Typically, do you make the truck to branch connections accessible or concealed?
 

Andrew P.

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Hello. I've been reading this forum for some time and am hoping to get some advice on my polybutylene plumbing.

I lived in a mobile home from about 1979-1994 that was plumbed with polybutylene. The unit was built in late 1977 or early 1978, shortly before Shell Chemical cheapened the resin formulation and removed the plasticizer, which caused grief for so many owners in subsequent years due to cracking fittings. The only problem I ever had with the system was a galvanized steel crimp ring failing where the polybutylene tube connected to the gas water heater. It started dripping around 9:30 p.m. one evening, and I was out in my pajamas attaching a stainless screw clamp to the line, trying to stop the leak. I never had a failure of the tubing or any of the plastic elbows and tees, though. The mobile home was built entirely without angle stops for the toilet and sink faucets, and I had a devil of a time finding a source for those. I ended up getting them from an RV dealer; it turns out polybutylene was popular in motor homes and camp trailers. The angle stops came with compression fittings, so I didn't need a crimp tool to install them in the lines.

The company that had so much trouble with polybutylene in the 1980s was U.S. Brass. Their fittings are identifiable by the "QEST" marking on them. They were sued in a class action and went into bankruptcy. They were purchased out of bankruptcy by Zurn, and eventually started producing a line of PEX fittings, identifiable by a "QPEX" or "Q PEX" marking. Zurn is now the target of a class action suit in Minnesota over failing PEX fittings. If you ever saw a QEST fitting and compare it to a QPEX fitting, you'll see the family resemblance. Both were designed to use crimp rings.

In my opinion, if your polybutylene plumbing is working, don't mess with it. If you're thinking of expanding the system using PEX, consider scrapping the entire polybutylene system and replacing it entirely with PEX. Stay away from Zurn and other systems that use metallic crimp rings to hold them together, since the rings are prone to corrosion, and when they finally go, the joint will leak. Consider using Wirsbo AquaPEX, which uses a completely different method of making joints: A PEX ring is placed over the end of the tube and the ring and tube are expanded with a special tool. The tubing is slipped onto a plastic or brass fitting — your choice — and within 30 seconds it shrinks so tight you can't get it off. Within an hour it shrinks permanently watertight, and there are no metallic rings to worry about. If you should choose to go with Wirsbo AquaPEX, stay completely with Wirsbo tubing and fittings; don't even think of mixing in some parts from other manufacturers you might find at Home Depot, Lowe's, etc. If you need to do something that can't be done in PEX, use a brass PEX-to-copper adapter and solder together a small copper subassembly.

I've done a partial replumbing of my house using Wirsbo PEX components. Even though my DIY work wasn't eligible for the Wirsbo warranty, I read the manuals and followed directions carefully. After ten years I haven't had any problems whatsoever. (I did, however, leave the walls open for a few weeks to monitor the joints for leaks. When I was satisfied that it would hold, I buttoned everything up.)

For a good overview on the problems of polybutylene systems, see the following PDF document:
http://www.nachi.org/forum/attachments/f22/1710d1141337753-polybutylene-okay-anytime-pb-litigation-fact-sheet.pdf
 
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