So I made a Sharkbite mistake, not sure how big of a deal it is....

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Tlhfirelion

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Been redoing my spare bathroom, total gut. I finished up the shower yesterday and as I was picking up my tools and cleaning up my mess I found one of the plastic tabs that are supposed to go in the end of the pex pipe when it goes into the Sharkbite. This was an odd install in that having an access port, which I want, prefer and have on the other shower, was not an option on this one as the wall is shared with the kitchen wall backsplash. I've used shark bite fittings a few times with no real issue but it was always with copper, this was my first project using pex. The only want to access this now is to tear out a wall so I'm not sure if this is something to lose sleep over but figured I'd ask the experts here. Thank you in advance for any assistance you are able to provide.
 

Jadnashua

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If I understand you, with one of the Sharkbite connections on pex, the internal pipe stiffener was (accidentally) removed?

I'd be worried. Often, the pex itself is not truly round and if it has any side pressure on it, over time would distort more. The stiffener helps to round it out so that the o-ring can then make a reliable seal. You could try calling their tech support line, but my guess is that they would just tell you they don't know, and not really help, but it's worth a shot. The way I look at it is this, if that stiffener wasn't needed, it wouldn't be there.
 

Tlhfirelion

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If I understand you, with one of the Sharkbite connections on pex, the internal pipe stiffener was (accidentally) removed?

I'd be worried. Often, the pex itself is not truly round and if it has any side pressure on it, over time would distort more. The stiffener helps to round it out so that the o-ring can then make a reliable seal. You could try calling their tech support line, but my guess is that they would just tell you they don't know, and not really help, but it's worth a shot. The way I look at it is this, if that stiffener wasn't needed, it wouldn't be there.


Thanks for the reply. Yes, the stiffener was accidentally left out on the bottom two connections for the shower mixer valve on the hot and cold. My choices now are to tear out the new shower I just put in or the backsplash in the kitchen. There just isn't enough room when I take the cover plate off the mixer valve to get down in there and redo the connections. I'll call the tech support as suggested and see what they have to say but I think we both know what their answer will be. Thanks again.
 

Jadnashua

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Are you certain that it isn't just where you converted between copper and pex where you then pulled out the stiffener? It would be a major pain to open things up and then find out it was fine in the first place! FWIW, if you ream the end of the copper pipe, you can leave the stiffener in with a Sharkbite and it generally will fit if the pipe is not distorted.
 
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