Zurn expansion vs cinch

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HDtvkeith

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I am getting ready to re-pipe my home. I am going to tackle a great deal of it myself. I am leaning toward Zurn PEX for a few reason over PEX A. The appeal of Zurn is it can be expanded as well. The issue I have is I find very few references of people that did Zurn and expansion vs. clamp/cinch. Expansion would surely be easier and I would by the Milwaukee M12 tool if I go the expansion route or the Ryobi Power PEX Clamp cinch tool. Curios if there are people that have done Zurn expansion and care to share their experiences. If I do expansion I will not upsize the piping, but if I do clamp/cinch then I will be upsizing the pipes. The biggest pro I can see to clamps is I can use the Boshart Stainless fitting which have curved elbows to help reduce resistance and turbulence.
 

John Gayewski

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Take a picture of the label on the piping. All the numbers and abbreviations.
 

JohnCT

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The biggest pro I can see to clamps is I can use the Boshart Stainless fitting which have curved elbows to help reduce resistance and turbulence.

Are there any published charts that show how much an improvement a curved elbow has over a right angle 90?

Anyway, with PEX A, you can eliminate some of your 90s entirely with a radius bend support. PEX A can bend tighter than B, and if you accidentally crimp it while bending it, A can be repaired with a heat gun.

John
 

HDtvkeith

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I am concerned about PEX A from what I have read it leaches more than PEX B, Probably going to put a filter in the kitchen and use copper from the filter to the kitchen cold water tap. Also maybe I am just old but wrapping my head around a expanded piece or plastic that wants to shrink back to old size and maintaining tat for 20-30 years vs. a stainless steel cinch clamp that has locking wedges logically to me the later seems more secure. Maybe plastic in general is a struggle for me as the wife's old town house had poly and flooded twice and she finally had that replaced like 12 years ago.

Also not sure why, but when I put the repipe out to bid I had one say CPVC, 3 say PEX B (they all said they had to repipe PEX A in recent years) and only one said PEX A.


Had seen mentions of the elbow vs curved, here is what I found recently

 

John Gayewski

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I am concerned about PEX A from what I have read it leaches more than PEX B, Probably going to put a filter in the kitchen and use copper from the filter to the kitchen cold water tap. Also maybe I am just old but wrapping my head around a expanded piece or plastic that wants to shrink back to old size and maintaining tat for 20-30 years vs. a stainless steel cinch clamp that has locking wedges logically to me the later seems more secure. Maybe plastic in general is a struggle for me as the wife's old town house had poly and flooded twice and she finally had that replaced like 12 years ago.

Also not sure why, but when I put the repipe out to bid I had one say CPVC, 3 say PEX B (they all said they had to repipe PEX A in recent years) and only one said PEX A.


Had seen mentions of the elbow vs curved, here is what I found recently

I do know what you mean about plastic. I'm not even that old and I still think copper it's better by a long shot. Why don't you rent a pro press and do copper. Or sweat it?
 
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Reach4

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Probably going to put a filter in the kitchen and use copper from the filter to the kitchen cold water tap.
Don't run reverse osmosis water through copper or other metals.
A regular cartridge filter does not have that concern.
 

JohnCT

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I do know what you mean about plastic. I'm not even that old and I still think copper it's better by a long shot. Why don't you rent a pro press and do copper. Or sweat it?

Personally, if I was going to replumb with with copper, I'd sweat the joints. I just don't like the idea of relying on an O-ring behind sheet rock any more than I would trust a Sharkbite behind sheet rock.

John
 

John Gayewski

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Personally, if I was going to replumb with with copper, I'd sweat the joints. I just don't like the idea of relying on an O-ring behind sheet rock any more than I would trust a Sharkbite behind sheet rock.

John
The o ring is a secondary seal. I'm not sure how much I believe that but that is thre claim made by the rep which taught the certification class for the pro press system. I will say the o ring doesn't have contact with the water in a pressed joint and I have had bad couplings, that when inserted pushed the o ring out. Never the less when pressed that same bad coupling did hold tight.

I generally agree with you, but in real life many many many commercial and residential plimbing and hydronic jobs are done with it. There has been no widespread failure, that I know about.
 

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The o ring is a secondary seal. I'm not sure how much I believe that but that is thre claim made by the rep which taught the certification class for the pro press system. I will say the o ring doesn't have contact with the water in a pressed joint and I have had bad couplings, that when inserted pushed the o ring out. Never the less when pressed that same bad coupling did hold tight.

I generally agree with you, but in real life many many many commercial and residential plimbing and hydronic jobs are done with it. There has been no widespread failure, that I know about.

There's a guy on youtube who did three presses with the O-rings removed as an experiment, and one of them had a significant drip, and that was on very short sections. I would think with some vibration, water hammer, or dimensional changes of long sections with temp might aggravate press fittings with no O-rings.

John
 

John Gayewski

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There's a guy on youtube who did three presses with the O-rings removed as an experiment, and one of them had a significant drip, and that was on very short sections. I would think with some vibration, water hammer, or dimensional changes of long sections with temp might aggravate press fittings with no O-rings.

John
The other bad thing about pro press is that it can give you a false sense of strength. If you press an adapter onto a piece of pipe you definitely need to have a wrench on the press fitting itself when you go to screw something to it. I have had them work loose when twisted.

Some of the valves have two o rings inside of them I'm pretty sure those are about permanent as far as quality seal.
 

HDtvkeith

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I do know what you mean about plastic. I'm not even that old and I still think copper it's better by a long shot. Why don't you rent a pro press and do copper. Or sweat it?

My sweating skill are rusty and it would add a bunch of time. I am considering the first part to of the trunk being copper and then run copper to the kitchen.
 

JohnCT

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My sweating skill are rusty and it would add a bunch of time. I am considering the first part to of the trunk being copper and then run copper to the kitchen.

If you don't think your sweating skills are up to the task, then expansion PEX is the best option. It's virtually foolproof whereas a poorly sweated joint may leak a year or two from now - after you've sheet rocked and painted.

John
 

Reach4

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My sweating skill are rusty and it would add a bunch of time. I am considering the first part to of the trunk being copper and then run copper to the kitchen.
Press fittings for copper are very popular today. There are hand tools that are fairly inexpensive compared to the power tools. So if you want copper, and don't want to solder, press would be a good way. I have never done it, because I like both pex and copper, and I can solder, and I am not a plumber.
 

Jeff H Young

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Im totaly pro Copper, but if it was my own home I dont know if Id want to repipe my house with pro press, buy the tool, pay the higher price for fittings, pay more for pipe. Or save the money and run Pex?
hdtvkieth, belives pex leaches thus is unfit for use so that would answer my question and run copper. we all belive differant things Im not going to try to talk people into or out of plastic, my house is all pex Im ok with it but didnt build it.
 
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