PEX water connectors (e.g. icemaker) reuseable?

[wwhitney]

A 1/4" PEX water connector such as the following comes with captive 1/4" compression nuts and a tapered fattening at each end, as you can see in the picture.

Amazon.com

The instructions tell you to hand tighten and then tighten 2-1/2 times with a wrench. The result is that when you disassemble the connection (or at least my one sample connection), the PEX end has been deformed into more of a cylinder with a flange above it. I.e. the very end of the taper got squeezed into a cylinder, but the fattest part of the former taper is still about the same diameter.

So is that end reusable to reconnect? If so, only for the same connector (that it was originally attached to), or should one expect it to still work for an arbitrary 1/4" compression connector?

Cheers, Wayne

 

[Terry]

Reusable? I normally toss old supply lines and use a new one each time.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[wwhitney]

Reusable? I normally toss old supply lines and use a new one each time.

Normally I would, but this one is less than a year old. Moving a new refrigerator from one place to another.

Anyway, replacement is my default, since the PEX end is deformed. If it was the braided kind over a vinyl tube, with a rubber washer at the end that is softer and wouldn't stay deformed, I'd probably just reuse it.

Cheers, Wayne

 

[John Gayewski]

Normally I would, but this one is less than a year old. Moving a new refrigerator from one place to another.

Anyway, replacement is my default, since the PEX end is deformed. If it was the braided kind over a vinyl tube, with a rubber washer at the end that is softer and wouldn't stay deformed, I'd probably just reuse it.

Cheers, Wayne

What type of PEX is this?

 

[wwhitney]

What type of PEX is this?

That's a good question. The manufacturer's site doesn't say, and the printing on the supply line is just: Eastman 1/8" CTS 1/4" OD cUPC cNSF US-PW.

Cheers, Wayne

 

[Tuttles Revenge]

Toss and replace with a stainless braided ice maker supply with the rubber gaskets at each end.

 

[wwhitney]

Toss and replace with a stainless braided ice maker supply with the rubber gaskets at each end.

Why should I prefer a reinforced PVC tube over a PEX tube? (Straight question).

Cheers, Wayne

 

[Tuttles Revenge]

I've never seen one of the plastic tubes that claimed it was PEX... but I've not installed a plastic tube for a long time due to their previous failure rates. Those could have been PB? If they're pex now that may be better, but if the cone has formed once, and doesn't re-form I don't see how it would maintain a seal on its second go round.

But you got me on the Stainless jacketed PVC.. We use fluidmaster version, which I just looked up.
Internal Hose (Ice Maker only) Santoprene™... which I don't know what is. I'll have to look that up

But I've never had a failure on my braided lines that wasn't due to over or under tightening..