Zurn class action law suit. My sorry tale.

[Master Plumber Mark]

Umbrella Policy is wise with PEX

.

I personally have never plumbed a new house with PEX, I still use the best copper I can. I do use PEX to make repairs in manufactured homes to extend or repair, especially when repairing PB pipe.


Recent events in my life have taught me not to sweat the small stuff and I know it sounds silly, but a leak, if nothing gets hurt, but property, is a small thing. Pay your insurance bill, if you can't quit, PEX or Not.

Wise advice........

The wirsbo is pretty good, I just did up two houses and should take some pics of it....

it still does not look as good as copper no matter how hard ou try to make it look good, it all looks like a bunch of wet noodles hanging up there.


As far as those plumbers in Minnesota......

if they have the umbrella policy on their business to
be insualted from lawsuits, they are ok....

if they dont
they are in trouble and might as well clsoe the doors......

 

[wet!]

Hello,

I wonder if the fitting was over tightened. I would just get higher quality fittings, and be sure they are carefully installed, and not "cranked-on" as tight as possible when installed.

This failure has nothing to do with PEX.

-Tom

Oh yes it did!

There were four other cracks in the nut, only one went all through. At Lindy's in Benedict, all of the three quarter Zurn fittings had this defect. At Bemidji all the half inch fittings had this defect. The one I picked as a replacement had the cracks lined up with the shoulders. These had never been used.

Now who has heard of a brass nut cracking when reefing it down? Half inch and three quarter inch fittings were on steam engines since the dawn of the industrial revolution. It took modern business suits and off shore manufacturing to produce this outrage.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[wet!]

So, I was thinking of using PEX on my next plumbing project. Should I reconsider?

Yes! Don't use the junk!

 

[TMB9862]

Yes! Don't use the junk!

Or just don't go the cheapest and easiest route.

 

[Wet_Boots]

Perhaps like Made in Japan in the 50's and 60's stopped Japan from selling Toyota's and Nissan's (Datsun)... I remember transister radios made in Japan, point to point wiring, quick, cheap, they worked...

Rancher

They didn't work because the Japanese made good transistors. They worked, in part, because the circuit designs made allowance for wide variance in component performance. Too bad there isn't a similar 'rescue' available for Zurn pex fittings.

 

[Jar546]

I was contacted by a near by home owner about the failure of another Zurn brass fitting yesterday.

The circumstances are as follows. He left his expensive log home for 90 minutes. When he returned he heard water running. He had 4 inches of water in his basement. The cause:- another Zurn fitting had failed and the nut split in half and the pipe fell free in the wall space. Water leak was estimated at 120 gallons per hour at least.

This is where emotions and not clear thinking blow things out of proportion. Do the math.

A small ranch home approximately 1200 square feet would have a basement the same size, lets say 40 x 30 feet.

120 gallons of water per hour (2gpm) for 90 minutes would be 180 gallons of water.

This would put approximately 1/4" of water in a basement, not 4" in 90 minutes. Now, if his basement was small, approximately 8'x8' then you can reach the 4" level.

So, for a smaller than average home of 40x30 to get 4" of water in the basement, you would need 2,880 gallons of water. To get 2,880 gallons of water in 90 minutes you would need a leak at 32 gallons per minute.

 

[Jar546]

The point of my post was to keep things in perspective. If you are going to document for a lawsuit then document accurately. If you are trying to make a point, it has more validity if you don't exaggerate. Third and fourth hand stories just don't help the situation. All stories have two sides therefore you always hear the bias if you only hear one.

My experience with PEX systems has been good. For the past 7 years that I have been inspecting I have not come across any problems or had any reports of problems. Most systems that I see in new construction do not have the Zurn brand fittings but many do. At least 50% of the homes that I look at are rural with a well. The Pocono region of PA is notorious for acidic water (low pH) and causes problems with fixtures, appliances and copper pipe joints. If there is anything that I see routinely on existing homes it would be pin hole leaks near joints where it is loaded with oxidation and corrosion.

I am not pro PEX or copper. They both have problems. Fittings for plastic pipe has always been a problem but if you run from your manifold block directly to your fixture then you will have very few fittings.

I just think society is too quick to litigate and we all know where all the money ends up anyway.

 

[Jimbo]

120 gallons per hour is 2 gallons per minute, about what you get out of a lav faucet. On the other hand, if the pipe "broke free" as described, a 3/4 pipe could flow well in excess of 10 gallons per minute, but probably not 32 gallons per minute.

The devil is in the details!

 

[Master Plumber Mark]

yes.......lets do the math..

This is where emotions and not clear thinking blow things out of proportion. Do the math.

A small ranch home approximately 1200 square feet would have a basement the same size, lets say 40 x 30 feet.

120 gallons of water per hour (2gpm) for 90 minutes would be 180 gallons of water.

This would put approximately 1/4" of water in a basement, not 4" in 90 minutes. Now, if his basement was small, approximately 8'x8' then you can reach the 4" level.

So, for a smaller than average home of 40x30 to get 4" of water in the basement, you would need 2,880 gallons of water. To get 2,880 gallons of water in 90 minutes you would need a leak at 32 gallons per minute.

Emotions play a big role when you come home and find a flood...

generally when a 1/2 inch line breaks apart,
it can throw out quite a lot of water out in a very short time....


it really does not matter wether 50 gallons or 5,000 gallons of water came pouring out of a
crappy Chineese Zurn brass fitting..

the point is that these fittings are in your nice brand new log cabin home.

and once the damage is done ....their is nothing left to do but cry.

the then get angry and sue the living hell out of anyone involved in the nightmare..........



Would you please Look at this picture , get out your calculator and
calcualte how long the water ran and how much time it took to make the mess it did..

factor in the thickness of the ice and the temp , then divide by the time that they were gone
and you should be able to get an accurate reading...


I would say that by the thickness of the ice on the porche....
that at least 5,000 --15,000 gallons
came spraying down from a break somewhere above those cars,

 

[Jar546]

mark, I think you missed my point

 

[Master Plumber Mark]

I get your point....

The big picture has not even reared its ugly head yet.

...

The problem is going to be cropping up in about another
5 years when all these systems you are inspecting begin to rot through at those crappy joints..


eventually....their will literally be millions of homes in this lawsuit
that will probably put ZURN out of business and I am sure they are p
robably contemplateing bankruptsy already.......

they wont be able to go back on the Chinese
manufacturer that they subbed out these fittings to
that slave labor factory will be gone too......


ZURN wanted something for the rock bottom dollar price
and instead of having it made for 3 times the price in the USA
by craftsman, they let Chineese slave labor make them and dump them on our shores...

now they got to live with it....

or should I say we got to live with it...



The only pex that is worth useing is the wirsbo with the plastic fittings.....

 

[Jar546]

Time will tell.

Is this problem specific to Lowes and Home Depot products or through other plumbing suppliers?

There are no issues with Wirsbo?

 

[Dunbar Plumbing]

Absolutely no one knows the exact square footage of that basement.

No one knows the specific details on the lawsuit.

I'm sure the statement was estimated at best, scrutinizing that doesn't deter from the big picture of product failure.

It will get worse before it gets better, age of the product will be what these plumbing forums will get littered with.

I can only imagine what 5-10 years will be in that situation.

Plastic and lawsuit are two permanently combined words in the plumbing industry, that's a fact jack.

 

[Master Plumber Mark]

pex is treacherous territory....

well, all i know is the Wirsbo system
is probably the best one out there.....

the fittings are superior to all the rest
and the way they go together far surpasses
the shitty crimp rings that all the others use.....


of course give them all about 10 years,
let the high levels of chlorine sink into the
pex plastic and then sit back and watch the fireworks...

of course that isnt ever going to happen.
All the pex salesman say.......



oh ...wait a minute...
isnt this thread all about the ZURN disaster???

 

[Alternety]

I believe Wirsbo PEX connections expand a piece of PEX in their tool and puts it over the connection. It then returns to its normal size and provides a tight joint. Nothing to corrode. I can't get to any joints with the walls up but I am sure someone on here can say yes or no to what I am saying.

As I recollect the issues with most of the famous plastic water pipe problems were from the fittings.

 

[serge]

Failed copper pipe

Well in Vancouver BC where almost all the new condos have PEX we didn't have a problem with the PEX failing. It was the CHEAP copper from China that failed in some large supply pipes and flooded the parking garage.

Just goes to show that any cheaply made thing can fail. PEX isn't a big bugaboo hiding in the walls. The substandard copper/brass stuff is.

 

[Redwood]

It was the CHEAP copper from China that failed in some large supply pipes and flooded the parking garage.

Just goes to show that any cheaply made thing can fail. PEX isn't a big bugaboo hiding in the walls. The substandard copper/brass stuff is.

Are you willing to pay more? Is anybody else?
I see no shortage of people walking into China Mart! Oops I mean Walmart!

 

[GPRACING]

I hate to break the news but it isnt just zurn fittings you are going to see problems with.Ive done quite a bit remodeling this year on houses plumbed with just about every different brand of brass pex fittings made.Ive seen fittings that were so corroided up that I dont see how water passed thru them!All i can say is if you live in an area that has had major problems with copper pinhole leaks do not put brass or copper pipe/fittings back in.The water will eat it up.I have a friend that had pinhole leaks about ten years ago.He swore it was just bad copper and the water had nothing to do with it.So he paid big bucks to have his whole house repiped with type L copper.Seven years later he started having pinhole leaks again.I totally agree that chinese made ANYTHING is junk but something has to be addressed about the water our cities are selling us.

 

[BurleyMike]

jar546, It is any zurn brass fitting from anywhere that has problems. I bought some of mine at a big orange box store and some at the local hardware store. I am sure you saw the pictures of the fittings I tore out and cut in half. I am glad the last of that zurn crap is out of my house.

The water around here does not eat copper pipes so I am not too worried about using brass as long as it is not Zurn. The Viega/Vanguard fittings I removed from 14 months of service looked just fine inside. The brass shut off valves in the main bathroom were origninal to the house (1958) and they looked better inside than the zurn brass did.

Too bad somebody does not just make stainless pex fittings. They would be worth the premium.

 

[GPRACING]

Glad to here that about the vangaurd fittings.I used to use them but it seems that every supply house around here went with whatever they can get the best deal on-chinese crap.Years ago I actually switch from vangaurd to zurn because zurn offered a better warranty!I havent ran into any bad vangaurd fittings yet but I have had zurn fittings fail and have seen several durapex fittings near failure.I have my supplier checking into the plastic pex fittings that Im not to crazy about and also the new sharkbite pex fittings.I actually talked to the sharkbite rep and he said that their pex fittings were made in austraila like their other stuff.Yesterday I dug up a waterline that I had repaired several times over the years.I FINALLY talked the lady into replacing the whole line.Anyways 3 years ago I made a repair with sharkbites.They were fine.Last year I made a repair with sweat on zurn fittings.One of them completly rotted off!