pex or kitec
 

Hope to start construction on our house this spring. What are the po's and con's of these two pipe systems compare to copper.

Personally I like cpvc for hot and cold runs.

oddjob---me too

DM

I like PEX and prefer the home run/manifold system, the ease of installation, and dog gone it...it's just plain fun!

Same here. CPVC's easy, but I wouldn't put it in my own house now that PEX is an option.

i like pex it's a great product easy to use although the crimp tool is around a $100 to buy very worth it, very flexible, make sure to purchase stainless steel crimp rings. pex can be purchased in 100ft rolls at home depot or lowes it also comes in red for hot and blue for cold. it also comes in 20ft sticks from a contractor supply house. one more thing about pex that a plumber told me he put a 16d nail througn the center of a 3/4 inch within 5 min it sealed itself, as well as the cold it will expand 5 times it's diameter. hope this helps.

Wow! I shot a one leg of a 7/16" bostitch staple in to the PEX once and got nothing but a shower...fine spray at that. While this may be true...don't count on self-healing fixes.

Yes it is fun.

I like pex because it is more freeze resistant than copper, PVC or galvanized. There have been pex that was frozen solid for a week in eastern Oregon and when it was thawed out it worked fine. Can't do that with copper or PVC.

Also it has better flow as you can get by with less fittings.

The down side is that you can't get high sniffing pex. :laughing:

I've seen this happen with drywall screws and trim nails in PEX lines before. They don't leak at first in some circumstances, but will suddenly leak like crazy months later once the screw rusts out. If properly installed and protected, the chances of a nail or screw penetration is significantly reduced.

one thing i've not seen mentioned yet is price. in today's economy, prices for everything doubled and tripled every week, i suppose if you can afford to buy pex, ok. but it's cost prohibitive to some. i've found cpvc lying along side the road many times. falls off trucks around here. can't say that about rolls of pex though.....PLUS----> $100 tool + $? for fittings vs. $3 primer and glue to install. no needing major math skills there to see why we chose cpvc. would i use pex? heck yeah! when i can get tool, fittings, and enough to do the job at an auction......

DM

Many places will rent the tool for $10 a day. My local plumbing shop loans the tool out if you buy the pex from them. If you don't like the tool you can use sharkbites but they are expensive.

Yes it is more expensive but it is just so much nicer to work with.

1/2" is about 41 cents a foot if purchased in 300 foot rolls which is slightly more expensive than CPVC. The advantage is that with 1/2" you can bend it around corners and don't need as many fittings. Overall I would say that pex is comparable to CPVC.