My plumbing saga

We've got a couple of good, spirited threads regarding various issues related to home ownership, so I figured I'd throw another log on the fire.

I bought my house in November, and as a first time buyer, decided to hire a buyer's agent. He recommended that I use a home inspector he worked with in the past, and I was pretty happy with the stuff the inspector found. I ended up getting a $1500 credit for various things that needed attention, and felt like I was buying a house in pretty good shape, all things considered.

A couple months ago, however, I started to see some water damage on the ceiling in my kitchen. Soon the water was coming down the wall in an adjoining room, and I had a contractor come in to look at it. He found several leaks in copper pipes behind the walls of my bathroom. The water kept coming after these leaks were fixed, so the contractor opened up my ceiling and found several more leaks, this time in the kitchen. Then, I see a couple more pinhole leaks down in the basement.

In other words, my copper tubing (about 45 years old) is completely shot, and I'm staring down the barrel of replacing my entire plumbing system. I've had a plumber come in, and though I haven't gotten the estimate yet, I know it's going to be a big number.

Now, I understand that shit happens as a homeowner, and that not all kinds of repairs can be anticipated by a home inspector. I couldn't have expected him to see leaks behind walls and above ceilings, and I didn't notice anything suspicious about the pipes in the basement myself, and couldn't tell you if there was any evidence of corrosion on them. Then again, home inspecting isn't my job, which is why I paid the guy to find stuff for me.

I also know that this type of thing doesn't happen overnight. My pipes were leaking in no fewer than seven places within six months of buying my home. Furthermore, in one case (in the kitchen) I found that the area of the ceiling where water damage was visible had been painted over. Clearly, they had tried to cover up water damage (and obviously succeeded in that regard.)

Basically, I'm feeling pretty bad about all of this. I'm not quite ready to say I feel like I got jobbed, but I do feel that I was deceived by the seller (painting over the prior water damage, not noting anything about leaks on the disclosure form) and that maybe the home inspector could have noticed the exposed pipes in the basement weren't in the best shape.

So, I guess I'm wondering if anyone's ever been through this kind of thing, and might have any advice on what to do. "Suck it up" is a valid response, and, if that's the case, consider this thread nothing more than a rant on my part.

I would consider 2 options:
* Does insurance cover you? Copper pipes shouldn't rust through - there's no reason that it should fail AFAIK. In which case each incident is covered by insurance. It may not have had corrosion inhibitor put in though
* If the system is very old then the inspector should have inspected it and let you know. Consider his liability here. You paid him to inspect the house and fabric. Should he have mentioned the state of the plumbing?

The only reason I can think of for copper pipes to be failing that badly, is that they must have been allowed to freeze with water inside them at some point.

Are these pipes all on the *inside* of the insulation envelope of the house, or are some of them on outside of the insulation (or in the middle of the insulation) ?

Or was the house left unheated for more than a couple of days in the winter ?

Cheers

Not on my watch, it wasn't. The plumber who came around to give me an estimate initially thought the pipes might have frozen when he talked to me on the phone, but when he looked at it, said the pipes are just old, and that it's not unheard of for "M" grade copper pipe to fail after 40-50 years.

Here are a couple pictures of the leaks I took. The first one is in my basement where pipes are exposed, the second is from my kitchen where a big section of ceiling was cut out for access. It seems to me the second one could very well be the fault of a bad soldering job, but from what my contractor told me, the leaks he fixed upstairs were in the middle of a section of pipe like the first picture.

Normal inspectors don't punch holes in the wall. Your inspector's job is to notice leaks in visible pipes and to use a moisture sensor to look for wet drywall. Read over your inspection report carefully. If the inspector didn't do a moisture test, that might give you a reason to be annoyed.

Meanwhile, since it looks like you're stuck redoing your plumbing, I'd encourage you to check out PEX pipes. Basically, they run flexible rubber tubing everywhere rather than rigid copper/plastic pipes. It's a star-shaped topology as well, meaning you get a central location where you can turn any outlet on and off. Among other benefits, you have more resistance against freezing damage, you avoid "water hammer", etc.

The basement is unfinished, so the pipes are very easy to see there. I am quite certain he did not use any kind of moisture sensor anywhere during the inspection. I walked through the house with him as he looked around and would have noticed something like that.

The only mention of the pipes on the inspection report is "Condition: Satisfactory." He did find a waste pipe in the basement that was sloped improperly, but there's no mention of any testing/examination of the pipes.

The plumber who gave me an estimate said that using PEX can hurt resale value. I'm not worried about that now, but in the future, it might be a concern. Of course it's possible he was blowing smoke to try to do a more expensive job.

The leaky area in that second photo does *not* appear to be at the solder joint either.

Frozen pipes. Little doubt of that.

Our house here, for example, has hard water and 47 year old original copper. That stuff is still like new. Thick, solid, and not even close to being leaky (we know, because we've had to cut into it to add new lines during recent renovations).

On the other hand, it is somewhat grotty on the inside, so we're happy to have replaced sections of it with new, clean pipe.

In your case, I imagine the interior of the pipe is probably equally grotty, so just save yourself some stress, and consider this an upgrade to your drinking water quality.

Go with PEX -- less wallboard damage, considerably less labour, and the estimate from the plumber should be less -- if not, get another estimate or three.

The way things are going, by the time you sell again somebody will have determined that copper is as harmful to humans as it is to fish, and the PEX will be a prime selling point!

Cheers

And I wonder where the 40-50 year old figure comes from?

The floor above those pipes (photo) was obviously constructed relatively recently, say within the past 10-20 years or so (modern plywood, glued down with modern construction adhesive).

But the solid wood joists are older than that.

???

Er, combination of typo and brain fart on my part. The house was built in 1975, which makes it 33 years old. The plumber used the 40 year figure, I guess he was rounding up.

He did say that "M" copper is rarely used in houses these days, and that most places use the thicker "L" or even "K" grades.

My new house has PEX. It's really fantastic. You never have knocking pipes. You never have toilet flushes causing changes in shower temperature. And, you don't have to worry about the increasing cost of copper. In fact, you can recycle your old copper and get some money back from this deal...

I disagree. It could easily have been caused by an electrolytic reaction. It might well be frozen pipes, too, but some of Tony's pipes are interior pipes, if I remember correctly.

Probably the best way to know which one is to see if there's a patina on the inside of the pipe or not. Of course, that necessitates removing the piping. But I think Tony's at the point where he has to replace the piping anyway. But if he decides to go with copper, he should definitely check that out, and possibly ground the piping better if he needs to.

There is, on the leaky sections that have been replaced, at least.



With copper prices at an all-time high, I think PEX may be the way to go, concerns about resale value be damned.

That almost certainly means that it's not an electrolytic reaction, then. If it was eating the copper away, there would be fresh copper left behind. With the patina there, it ought to be relatively protected from that sort of corrosion.

I'd be inclined to agree with Mark now, even if I do find it odd that interior pipes would freeze. Of course, I'm not familiar with how common that sort of thing might be in areas with colder winters that we get down here.


If memory serves, it's been used in Europe for ages, so I doubt that there's going to be any newly discovered concern about health problems.

I have PEX too, I have never heard anything about resale value being lower because of it. I doubt most people even consider things like that even though they should. I couldn't see any disadvantage with it and the plumber charged less for using it so that's what I went with.

I hadn't heard of this either. Why would PEX affect resale negatively? What, is it coated with BPA or something?

That seals the deal, then. First find a different plumber -- that one either doesn't know s--t, or figures that you (and your friends here!) don't know s--t.

There's no way that 1970s plumbing, let alone early 1960s plumbing, should be failing in that way, regardless of which (pipe) wall thickness was used.

Somebody in the past has left the house unheated for a week or more, and the pipes froze, causing them to develop cracks (as shown in your photos).

Find a modern plumber with PEX experience and prices, and enjoy some healthy water afterwards.

Cheers

Tony, sounds like you need [to] Change [to a plumber] You Can Believe In.


They say that Type M is OK for above-ground application but not always code in US, but 70s is not old.


Divorce house. Mom stomps off with kids to Grandma in Altoona and hubby consoles himself with new squeeze in St Barts while oil tank runs dry and new high pressure system sends local temps into the Fahrenheit teens.


I think folks are nervous about plastics because of the earlier-generation products (polybutylene, I think?). Watching some home-repair show recently, it looks like there is a major industry in parts of the U.S. just replacing that stuff from the 70s. So, PEX sure looks swell, but no decades-long track record like copper.

I'd get three quotes. I'd do PEX. By the time it fails, we'll all likely be living on big communal rafts anyway.

Cheers, indeed.

Oh, and I am not litigious by nature (have managed to get this far without every hiring a lawyer or suing anyone), but if I had good evidence of the seller painting over discoloured leaky spots I would be siccing the legal dogs on them.

Meanwhile, back to the inspector's liability:

Apparently, there's been some recent court action on this very topic. The long and the short of it is whether a court might find the inspector to have been "grossly negligent" and so forth.

In short, you've got a shot at suing your inspector. However, I'm guessing that the fees you pay your lawyer per hour will dwarf the cost of paying a competent plumber. And besides, you were planning to do some repainting anyway, weren't you? Before you get started going down the lawsuit road, you should definitely have a close read of the contract you signed with your inspector. There's a good chance that it makes no guarantees and limits the inspector's liability.

Still, if nothing else, you can tell the inspector that he missed some obvious problems, invoice him for the repair cost, and see what happens. Don't threaten to sue (yet). Maybe the guy cares enough about his reputation to want to help you out. If a court finds that he was grossly negligent, that's pretty much the end of his business, so he might be willing to help.

Do you perchance use well water? Or is it municipal? My parents had an issue with their copper pipes within 10 years of building their house. The sheet rock in my sisters' bathroom started to crumble. (yes, that's plural possessive on purpose.) Turns out that their water supply from the well outside was slightly acidic. Acidic enough to leech the copper from the inside of the pipes. This was most evident where threading was done to the ends of the pipes to attach the shower heads. They had to redo the ends only and added a massive filtration system to the entire house.

Another side effect that was noticed is that the greenish tint that was present in all the showers, sinks, and tubs went away. Obviously, our pipes were being deposited regularly in our sinks.

Mmm.. one other, extremely remote possibility: excessive water pressure. This would be far more likely to result in leaking fixtures rather than burst pipes, though.

Still, if your house is near the bottom of a valley or something, the water pressure might be a tad higher than normal.

-ml

Yup. That was a segment on Ask This Old House in Raleigh. Represent!

I was going to say. Rich seems to use that stuff most of the time on TOH.

For what it's worth, PEX piping is also subjected to some pretty serious safety tests as well. On the flip side, the plumbers who no longer get to charge big bucks for installing copper, oppose PEX, saying it's going to poison you and turn your children green. But don't worry, the people who make the fancy plastics in PEX pipes say there are no problems at all.

Random amusement: our fridge has a fancy activated charcoal filter, which I just replaced. I ran a bunch of water through it to get it all warmed up and such. I find that the straight tap water (via eeeevil PEX piping) tastes better than the water from my fridge (which probably uses its own cheap plastics for the internal piping...).

There was a rash of pinhole leaks here in MD not too long ago. This document tells a bit about it.

-jk

A report for which reading between the lines seems a necessity.

They determined that some water supply regions have a bigger problem than others. That the corrosion can be caused by a combination of aluminum and chlorine in the water. But did not try to tie the two together.

If the pipes have been damaged by freezing the pipes diameter will be slightly larger. In my experience with frozen pipes, they leak as soon as they unfreeze and leak A LOT.

Did you get a home owner's warranty with the house? I know my broker paid for my first year - kind of as a piece of mind thing.
For plumbing, they cover a whole slew of stuff, including 'Plumbing Pipe Leaks'.

Good luck, repairs like that are miserable to have to experience.

Check your state laws or with an attorney. In many states it is illegal to intentionally cover up problems with a home before you sell it. If they didn't mention this problem when you bought and they knew about it, then you might be able to sue for damages.

From my father, who knows a thing or two about real estate:

Yeah, I think I'd be doing the same. It's one thing if they're painting over discoloured spots from something that leaked in the past, and they've since had fixed, but painting over discoloured spots from something that's *still* leaking is a problem, especially if they haven't put it on the disclosures.

We had an offer accepted on a house, that, during the inspection, we noticed a spot on the ceiling that looked like it might be a leak. The owner insisted that the problem had been fixed, and it was on the disclosure form as having been fixed. Our inspector got up there with the moisture detector (luckily it was raining that day), and found that it hadn't been fixed, and it was leaking. They've since amended their disclosure form, but we pulled out of that deal, regardless -- it was going to be a money pit.

Well, I've got two plumbers coming tomorrow for estimates and a third calling me to set up an appt. I had to fight through a half dozen of them that won't even come out to my house without paying $50 or $60 for a service call to get an estimate. Just as well, I'll probably get a better bid from someone who actually wants the work.

I'm going to definitely ask for PEX. I know the jury's out on it, but I'm glad people here have good experience with it, and with copper being so expensive now, I'm willing to take the risk that resale dips slightly. The NSF International study puts my mind at ease a bit on the health aspects of PEX.

Re: freezing vs. corrosion, I can't say for certain which it is, but the pictures look a *lot* like the pictures in that PDF report from the Maryland state gov't. I can't rule out freezing, of course, but the lady across the street told me they had to replace all the copper in their kitchen, and she said they didn't let the pipes freeze, so I'm starting to think maybe it might be cheap/impure copper combined with something bad in our water supply. But I doubt I'll ever know the gospel truth on it. (This is municipal water, BTW.)

Re: legal options, I emailed a friend of mine who's a lawyer and he's going to go over the agreement I signed and see if the home inspector has any kind of obligation to do his job correctly. If not, I'll probably contact him and explain the situation and ask him to do the right thing and give me at least a partial refund. At the very least, I'd like him to know that he should actually check the pipes next time around, so maybe others don't have to deal with this.

No homeowner's warranty, unfortunately. My buyer's agent told me that they mostly exist as a sales gimmick, and that most of them have significant restrictions on which contractors you can use, what qualifies as a defect, etc. I'm sure there are exceptions but at the time no warranty was offered so I didn't get one.

That Maryland report is fascinating. If it is something in the water, PEX is probably cheaper than trying to get some kind of water treatment system to deal with the problem.

Matt, thanks for asking your dad about my problem. I still have the piece of ceiling that was painted over, and there are signs of the water damage on the other side. I can't say for certain when the painting happened (I know I didn't do it) versus when the water damage happened, but it certainly raises questions.

I really appreciate all of the advice and discussion here, folks. I have a lot more info to tackle this problem with now. I'll keep you posted how the estimate/repair process goes, and on any interactions with the inspector/agents/sellers that may come from this.

Correction, three plumbers came out today to give me estimates. The one guy said he'll get back to me with numbers, but the two numbers I got today are $3,350 and $4,300. This doesn't include patching the walls and ceilings that need to be ripped apart.

Assuming my homeowner's insurance covers a portion or all of this, do I even want to go that route? They'll probably just jack up my rates the way auto insurers do, right?

I recently had a similar plumbing issue. Homeowners insurance said they probably wouldn't pay and if they did they'd raise my rates (insurance is basically a scam IMO). The contractor wanted $4500. To make a long story short I did the work and it only cost me $250

Learn to sweat pipes and do it yourself. Get the major problems first and then over time replace al the pipes when time allows
.

Yeah, that's basically what I thought.



Yeah, my girlfriend's dad can help me with the copper. Looking at PEX a bit closer, it looks like there are a lot of folks out there that have gone the DIY route. For some brands of PEX it requires special crimping or expanding tools that I'd have to rent, but it does look doable. I'd probably have to give up several weekends and potentially go without running water at my place for some time, but to save $3000 in labor costs, it might be worth it.

Obviously depending on how your plumbing system is currently installed, you might be able to segregate your existing piping so that you would have water running to some parts of your house while you refit piping to the others. My guess would be that there is a branch fairly close to the supply line. Turn off the main shutoff (hopefully there is one and you don't have to call the water company) and cut off one branch to redo that side and cap off the stub you left. Then turn the main shutoff back on. Obviously, it would be helpful to know which is which to begin with so that you don't leave yourself with nothing but one functional sink, but, worst case, you can still take a, um, "sailor's bath".

I would assume that you could run a lot of the PEX before disconnecting any of the fixtures, resulting in less time with out water.

Reading a do-it-yourself guide to PEX (link), it looks like running PEX isn't all that much worse than running Ethernet wires. You have to leave enough slack for expansion, and you have to make sure the weight is properly supported, but none of that sounds too rough. You'd definitely want somebody to show you how to do the crimps properly. I'm guessing you'll have a much harder time opening the walls to get at the old pipes than you'd have installing the PEX to replace them.

Somehow, I imagine you end up leaving the old copper alone rather than trying to hack it out of the walls. Still, the scrap value is somewhere in the neighborhood of $3/pound, if I'm reading this web site correctly.

"hack it out" makes it sound like reciprocating saws and other noisy and/or gauche tools would be used. I'd suggest using a miniature tubing cutter. It's far more genteel.

A short demo...

Just cutting a pipe, inserting the ends and joining at 90deg

Obviously a huge amount of skill involved...

Instead of renting specialized tools what I do is purchase them and then resell them when I'm done. I try to get them used (sometimes off eBay) so then I don't loose a lot of resell value.

Also you’re not rushed to complete a job that usually you’re new at so you can return the tools in time.

If the tool is more general purpose I usually keep it. Since I save so much doing the job myself I can justify keeping the tool (by that I mean wifey lets me keep it).

With my last specialized tool purchase I made $30 when I resold the tool That’s better than losing money on a rental and I had all the time I needed to do the job right.

(Hmm.. My first attempt at this post seems to have gone to the great bit bucket in the sky.)

OK, I'll be the doom-and-gloom guy. If you miss a connection and it blows during the night or while you're away, will your home owner's insurance cover the damages for DIY work? If not, a bonded pro might be worth it.

I ask from experience: At work, the coffee machine's water line blew a few days after installation, spewing water all night long. It was a pencil-sized tube. The water saturated carpet over 100 feet in both directions, hitting several offices and a bunch of cubes. We lost several computers that were on the floor, had to retile the kitchen and server room (everything in the server room was up at least 6 inches, so no real problem there), and do some sheetrock work. Not to mention the roar of 20 fans and the dehumidifiers for the better part of a week.

-jk

The pipes in my office building are bad. In my old room (gorgeous, had windows overlooking the flightline and the airport across the street, mountains in the distance - now I live in a cave), water mains in the ceiling burst twice overnight, about two years apart. They estimated 20,000 gallons of water flooded it the first time, and 15,000 gallons the second time. First indication there was an 'issue' was the elevator being inoperative and the bottom of the shaft completely full of water. Good times!

Anti-leak : http://www.wayscale.com/index.shtml

True DIY work can sometimes not be up to par with the pro's. On the other hand I've had "pro's" majorly screw up stuff. I then had to fix it myself or fight them to fix it right.

You could, for a few days, turn the watermain off in the house before you leave. Then at least you wouldn't come home to a pool in your living room.

My latest issue was with the pipes leading to the house. I still have a big hole in my yard to make sure it doesn't leak. Everything looks good for me so far. I did do a similar repair years ago with no problem.

It sure is a lot easier to just "pay the man." But even that doesn't always turn out good.

No offense intended to jmwking, but the cure for FUD like that is rather simple: get a plumbing permit, and have the work inspected as required

Cheers

Hope the plumbing inspector is better than the home inspector

Big difference there.

The city Plumbing Inspector is a pro who signs off on the work, and that should be more than sufficient for any insurance FUD.

Home Inspectors are just a racket, like lot surveyors -- those both fall into the category of unnecessary things that many buyers often shell out for (not knowing any better).

Sure, once or twice one of them might find something significant enough to make their fees not a total loss, but..

Cheers

After getting those two estimates and doing more research on PEX installation, I am strongly considering the DIY route, or at least trying it first before I drop several grand.

The two estimates I have so far both have about $700-$800/day for labor for 4-5 days. The difference is the one estimate has an absurd $1500 for materials. Already ruled that one out.

I think the problem is that most of the time that they're quoting me is them trying to get at the existing pipes by cutting through my walls, ceilings, etc. and then removing them. I don't think this will take them that long, but they're probably padding the estimate a bit to ensure they don't go over due to unforeseen problems in getting at the copper. Once there is a reasonably clear path from the supply in the basement to all of the fixtures, I have trouble believing it's going to take them longer than a day to do the actual "plumbing" part of the plumbing job.

So, with the material costs for PEX being around what some plumbers were asking me to pay just to come out and give me an estimate, I can't see the problem with trying to do it myself. I can do a few of the easy runs first and go from there. If I get stuck for whatever reason, I can always call someone in and I've only lost a small amount in trying to save a bundle.

At the very least, I'm going to do *all* of the prep work of cutting open walls and getting to the pipes myself. Why pay plumber's rates for cutting through drywall? Also, I'm guaranteed to be more careful about doing the least amount of damage than they are.

Yes, there's the "nobody to blame but myself if I flood my house" factor, but I don't know that it will be any harder to get money from my homeowner's policy for repairs than it will to get money from the contractor's liability insurance. Also, the PEX installs really do seem easy once there's a clear path from the supply to the fixtures.

At this time, I'm seeing a very small risk for potentially a very big reward. I think I'll talk things over with someone at the local plumber's supply place to get some more info, though.

In my experience with city inspectors they seemed more concerned about how many inches off the floor something was or if it met some stupid city code.

Luckily I live way in the sticks and we barely have building codes.

Perhaps Canada has laws that make sense and inspectors that are competent and not "on the take."

In the O’l days my mom worked as a secretary for two building inspectors. Until they went to prison for accepting bribes.

Go and visit by all means but once you've worked out the materials you need, get on the telephone and start calling around for prices. They will price competitively to get your business. If you just turn up at the shop they will probably quote you full retail prices. I've saved as much as 40% by doing this with builders merchants.

I tend to pose as an office worker of a property management/maintenance company when doing this because it a) makes me appear to be in the trade, and b) gives me a get-out if they ask me something I don't readily understand. Works like a charm!

Is it both hot and cold pipes that have leaks? Or just one or the other?

I wouldn't consider hiring either the home inspector, or the surveyor, as a racket -- I consider it doing due diligence, particularly when I'm considering an investment of tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. Same way as, if I was planning on investing the same amount of money in a single company, I'd hire an external CPA to come in and audit the books. Me? I shelled out for the home inspector (well worth the money in our case -- we backed out of an offer based on the home inspector's report), but didn't bother with surveys, because the property lines were well defined, and the house was clearly within any local setback requirements.

Also, for what it's worth, land surveyors are licensed professionals who sign off on work -- if they put their name to something, they are legally liable if it's found to be wrong.

Of course, you'll find crooks in any line of business.

They may or may not be, but most mortgage lenders require those services before they will agree to the loan.

I'm with you that the inspections don't mean much but I would think if you got the permit and inspections the insurance couldn't deny paying because you did it yourself.

When I built my house the guy "let me by" on stuff because he didn't want to come back. The dumbest thing ever was they told me I couldn't get the certificate of occupancy without having appliances.

Both. Most of them have been on the cold, but down in the basement there is at least one leak on the hot side.

Okay, I'm trying to put together an approximate materials list for the DIY option. Can you folks who've installed PEX yourself or had it installed provide some guidance as to what I'll need?

I can measure out how much tubing and so forth I need, but I want to make sure I buy all the odds and ends I'll need for the installation. Here's a diagram I made to try to calculate the amount of tubing and number of fittings and so forth. The computer geek in me is loving how much this stuff resembles doing network cable, though I'm sure that resemblance is limited to the planning phase

Anyway, here's my shopping list so far:

A manifold
If I do this, I'm going to do it with home runs to most of the fixtures. Counting up the number of cold and hot endpoints, I think a manifold like this one should do the trick.

PEX tubing
There seem to be many brands. Some brands are only compatible with some of the fittings. I'll probably decide which way to go with the fittings and choose the tubing based on that.

There appear to be many different ways to join tubing to the various manifolds and fittings. There are copper crimp rings, stainless steel clamps, and expansion fittings, all of which require a specialized tool, and then there are sharkbite fittings that you just push the tubing on to. I'm ruling out the sharkbite ones based on what I've read, along with the fact that it just doesn't seem as sturdy to me on paper. But does anyone have opinions on which of the clamp/crimp/expansion options is better?

Fittings
I'll go through all my fixtures and figure out what I need to connect them. There's a special water heater connector available that I'll probably get. I'll also need some Ts to do splits where home runs are inconvenient/unnecessary. What else? I see they make 90 degree elbows, why would I need those when PEX is so flexible?

Installation stuff
I'll buy or rent whatever tool is necessary to do the crimping/clamping/whatever. I'll also buy various J hooks, fasteners, etc. for keeping the tubing in place and as neat as possible

What else am I likely to need?

Given that you're not experienced with it, you're bound to make the occasional mistake. As such, I'd go with the fittings that are most easily redoable while also ameliorating your feeling that they might leak.

PEX has a minimum bend radius before it kinks. It's possible that you might get into a situation where you'd have to bend it more tightly than its rated for. In that situation, you'd use an elbow fitting.

Keep in mind that with a manifold system, infrequently used faucets will create a column of stagnant water, which can lead to certain bacteria being able to grow more readily (think Legionnaire's Disease). For those outlets, I'd try to avoid a home run.

If you're going to run a whole new system and not just copy what the copper is already doing, you'll likely have to cut new holes in joists and such. Make sure you look up what the code is on cutting holes in load-bearing members. There's a reason that carpenters refer to plumbers as being worse than termites.

They make a tool for cutting flexible plastic tubing. It kind of looks like pruning shears. I'd definitely get one of those rather than trying to cut the PEX with a utility knife like LBT showed in his video.

Assuming you want to remove the old copper piping, I'd still suggest a tubing cutter. It's remarkable how well they work, and it's very tidy.

Oh, and make sure you have a good number of towels and buckets to catch water that will leak out of the existing system as you disconnect it.

My brother had an interesting experience with a building inspector. He put up a driveway awning and the inspector said that was fine but he had to plant some indigenous trees and plants in his yard to comply with code. My brother was like, what, OK I'll do that. So he spent a few hundred dollars on tree and plants, called the inspector back and the inspector then said “Oh that was just a suggestion, I don’t need to come back.”

Just IMHO - you're insane if you don't use push-fit
(I think push-fit == shark-bite)

Push fit is (almost) impossible to connect wrongly.

Anything involving a spanner/thread is almost impossible to connect correctly in tight spaces, like, say, in a retro-fit...


FWIW I do know where you're coming from - it's called old-age and conservatism - I was sceptical too. It also kills 'the trade' so they hate it and diss it whenever possible. (They're also a pretty conservative/dumb lot too).

Nowadays, would you use coaxial cable to wire up an ethernet network? Of course not. Materials have moved on - don't fall prey to the FUD!


What else?
4 elements to plumbing:
* waste (not relevant here)
* hot water supply
* cold water supply
* heating flow/return

Plan each separately.

You'll be partially constrained by existing layouts but you will have some opportunities.

Don't forget that you can easily join plastic to copper so you can replace sections in phases without needing to replace an entire system at once. This can drag out so make sure the brand you select has longevity.

Cold water:
Do you need to soften? Filter? Do you use a header tank - do you need to? If you soften then you need a potable feed to the kitchen (and bathroom sink if possible) - showers, appliances should be soft.Toilet feeds should be untreated to avoid wasting salt. Do you want to use reclaimed water for the toilets?

Hot water:
Less need to insulate with PEX but...
Do you want/need a pumped circuit so the hot water is instantly available anywhere in the house (very nice!)
Do you want mains pressure hot water?
Any desire for heat reclamation?
What about thermal stores?
What hot-water heating system do you use - is it worth changing it?

Heating
I assume radiators.You'll need to check the risers and probably want to use copper/chrome there for appearance.
Check the routing for heating - you may want to zone it and use switchable manifolds - they're not that expensive and it's really nice to have each zone heated independently. No point in heating the bedrooms whilst you're in the lounge/study all day.

If you want you can even automate the zone switching...(later!)

Lots to consider - I suggest you dismiss most of it

If you're getting your water from the city, then it's been treated with chlorine and heaven only knows what else. It should be comfortably clean, even if you leave it sitting around in the pipe for a while. I figure you'd be more likely to get an off-taste from the plastic than a some kind of nasty disease. Now, if you've got well water, that's another game entirely.

For what it's worth, my house, which was built from the ground up with PEX, has everything from the entire house converging on a central manifold, just like you would do with network cabling. This has the benefit that you can centrally turn off the water to absolutely anything in the house. Very convenient.

I would consider doing the hot water runs with pipe insulation. It's cheap, and it will conserve at least some of the heat energy. If you're planning to do a hot water circulator for instant-on hot, then this sort of insulation becomes even more important. (And it also guarantees that you're not just doing a simple star-shaped topology any more.)

I'm going to basically try to follow what the copper's doing, except there will be more runs down to the basement than there are now. That means I'll have to widen the existing holes a bit.

I will get one of those tubing cutters. For larger sections where there's a bit more room I'll probably use the reciprocating saw just to save time, but for close quarters, the manual cutter will be a lot cleaner and easier.

Regarding the stagnant water thing, isn't the solution to that to just let the water run a bit before drinking, and to use thinner tubing to those fixtures?

You're definitely correct to note that because this is a retro-fit, the sharkbite/push-fit stuff would probably be easier.

The only thing is, they're much more spendy than the clamp/crimp fittings (see this vs. this and this vs. this, for example.) The clamps/crimp rings cost a little bit, but still, it looks like I'll spend at least 4x as much for the push-fit stuff. Maybe the ease of installation is worth it, though...

I have forced air heating, so no need for any of the heating stuff you mentioned.

EDIT: Re: Sharkbites... One downside I can think of is that the perception that they're not as tried-and-true as other connection methods could lead an inspector to say they're unsafe or not up to code. There's a perception that they're fine for temporary connections, but that in-wall connections should be done with crimp rings/clamps. Even if it's not true, the perception could cause me to have problems with the inspector...

EDIT #2: Also, how about the fittings that have to attach to copper? From what I've read, the sharkbite uses a steel ring to grab on to the copper. Isn't there a strong possibility that there's a reaction between the dissimilar metals?

Good idea. Do you have a brand/model of hot water pump that you recommend? I assume the instant availability of hot water makes up for whatever energy they consume?

EDIT: Just did some Googling on the hot water recirculation pumps. It looks like some of them don't even require a line back to the water heater, rather, they just bleed the room temperature (formerly hot) water from the hot water line into the cold water line. Any opinions on which of these options is better? Is one option more energy-efficient than the other?

I don't have one of these, so I can't offer any specific advice. If you decide you want one, then you might as well run a separate "return" line to your faucets, such that your cold-water system doesn't need to mix with your hot-water system. Or, you could just have a giant circle from faucet to faucet, or even a handful of loops -- whatever topology matches up best with your existing house.

My understanding of them is that they effectively use the municipal water as sort of an overflow. Many municipalities now require backflow preventers, which would make that sort of system either impossible or illegal. I don't know about where you live, obviously.

That system would save you money on piping, but I think the other system where hot water is constantly circulating in the pipes makes more sense. Effectively it's just extending your hot water tank almost all the way to the faucet.

Hm, guess I'll go the return-to-tank way, then.

While googling for some more info on PEX, I found this design/install guide (PDF). Wish I'd seen that earlier, since it answers at least half the questions I've asked so far. Oh well. Good reference material, anyway.

I don't think so. They just take from the hot, and give to the cold, canceling out flow-wise. There's no net (or actual) flow in or out of the building with that.

Cheers

Hm. Maybe so. Maybe the extra water being put into the cold water lines will feed back into the hot water tank. Honestly, I'm still a little unclear on how the house's pressure defeats the municipal pressure in any case.

When the water is heated, it expands. If it's a closed system, that means water can be pushed back into the mains. This is a big no-no in UK plumbing regulations, and probably elsewhere too. Traditional UK hot-water systems (and heating circuits) have an open pipe venting into the cold-water tank in the loft for expansion overflow.

Peter

That heated water comes from the cold water line.. so if we're taking water from the hot water heater, it's really coming from the cold line. So circulating back to the cold line just cancels that out.

There may still be a separate code requirement for a backflow preventer, but that's something which is good for garden hoses and even the normal hot water supply as well.

Cheers

My point is that in order to circulate, the pressure at the sink has to be greater than the pressure at the source. If the pressures are equal and the thermostat gate trips, why is the water in the hot water line inclined to move to the cold water line? It seems to me that you'd have to have some sort of motor, and the solutions I've seen along these lines do not have any such thing.

In the US, cold-water tanks are virtually nonexistant. (There are some municipalities where the municipal supply doesn't have enough pressure to put water to the top of their tall apartment buildings, and those buildings will have tanks, but as far as I know, that's pretty uncommon. Other than that New York City is one of them.)

I don't know precisely how US hot water tanks deal with that problem, but I'd bet that there is more space in the tank beyond the point where the tank will shut off incoming cold water.

Looking at our hot water tank, it seems like it's dealt with in the same way as in the UK -- minus the cold water tank. That is, there's an open pipe running down the side of the tank (so that the hot water that vents from the top doesn't spray someone in the face). Any water released in the process will make a puddle on the garage floor.

I'm assuming though, that, like you suggest, there's extra space in the tank to accommodate fluctuations without the need to constantly spill out the pressure release, and the vent pipe is just a safety release.

Ahh.. The ones I know about all have a pump to move the water around.

But the kind with added tubing to return water directly to the heater/tank rely upon gravity induced convection (cold water is heavier) rather than a pump.

A quick update:

I spent some time this weekend measuring out all the runs I'll need and making decisions about which fittings to use, etc.

After much consideration, I've decided that I'm going to give the Sharkbite push-fit connectors a try. While they're much more expensive than the other fittings, the difference is more than made up by the fact that the other connections require specialized tools that cost a minimum of $150 and possibly up to $300. Sure, I can turn around and sell the tool afterwards, but what about when I need to redo a joint or fix a piece of PEX that's leaking? Really, I'd need to keep the tool around just in case, and that pretty much negates the cost savings of the traditional fittings.

Factor in the time that can potentially be saved, and I think I should at least give the Sharkbite fittings a try. If worst comes to worse, I'll return them and go another direction. The ability to join PEX to copper without touching a blow torch or solder really seals the deal here.

The other big change is that, due to some space constraints in my wall where the riser goes to the 2nd floor, I've decided to branch the hot/cold supply lines and send them upstairs to a second manifold, rather than serving them with home runs to the manifold in the basement. This way, I only need to send two 3/4" pipes up to the 2nd floor instead of 10 1/2" pipes. The cost ends up being a wash, basically (save money on tubing, spend it on another manifold) but will save me a lot of install hassle.

I'm just about ready to place my order, and will be taking pictures as I go through the process. The materials list I have right now clocks in a little bit over $1000, but I just found another online store that has the Sharkbite fittings cheaper, so I'll probably squeeze that number down a bit.

http://www.geekstuff4u.com/product_info.php?manufacturers_id=&products_id=836

http://youtube.com/watch?v=XxXx3imY3tM&feature=related

You tube has a load of pex install videos. If I understand it right, you only need, either a crimper or an expander, not both. Crimpers go for $100-150. So the cost of the less expensive fittings will offset the tool cost by a lot. It also seems better to avoid angled fittings if a bend will do. The video above shows one way to avoid in wall right angle fittings.


ProPEX - brand of fittings and tool where the tube is expanded.