An anal OCD person contemplates house re-pipe decisions around Pex.

[Randy C]

Thanks. When I look at some of the half ass stuff the builder’s plumber did I said I need to fix some of this in the repipe. No one has more vested in this than me and every plumber said they would just replace the copper with OEM following same runs.

I know what you mean, you should see the crazy stuff that was done to this house I bought, I can relate.
Good luck to you and your project, I don't have it in me like you do.

 

[hdtvkeith]

And I have the highest respect for people in the trades, it is truly a skill. Sure I can do PEX, but will I do it with the speed and precision of a real plumber, not likely. And my greatest thanks and appreciation to @Twowaxhack for steering me into not over complicating this and some great advice. True craftsman on forums providing advice is a priceless value. I am taking pics and vid’s and will post stuff online when complete.

 

[Randy C]

And I have the highest respect for people in the trades, it is truly a skill. Sure I can do PEX, but will I do it with the speed and precision of a real plumber, not likely. And my greatest thanks and appreciation to @Twowaxhack for steering me into not over complicating this and some great advice. True craftsman on forums providing advice is a priceless value. I am taking pics and vid’s and will post stuff online when complete.

Yes, I agree that it's a skill, most people can do it, but it takes dedication for one to be really good at it.
With a professional being as helpful as he is, and a person being able to actually use that information without getting their ego bruised, THAT is something.
I don't mean YOU literally so much as I mean, most forums have 'some' inflated ego driven people on them, and between the two of you, I don't see it.

Like I said, it was just a pleasure to read what y'all talked about, and I read it with great interest.

 

[hdtvkeith]

Getting ready to do my re-pipe and trying to decide what to do at the bathtub and then shower valves. This pic is the second bathroom tub valve. Lovely hack job mounting the valve. The valve and the the short vertical pice is 7 years old from when we remodeled. This pipes are basically right up against the black roof paper the tile people used. There a no room to proper a pex fitting or even to get a heat pad behind it to sweat a pex fitting on.

seems my choices are either leave several inches of old horizontal copper down to where there is more space to get a propress or sweet on a oex fitting. The other options is cut out the stud and replace the valve with a pex tub valve. I have not opened the wall behind the master shower yet, but expect soothing similar, but that wall is using Kerri board.

That stud the valve is on is the back of a hallway closet so I doubt is is handling any load. .

 

[hdtvkeith]

Also another pinhole surfaced today. That is #5 in 4ish months.

 

[Twowaxhack]

You can buy a heat shield or just use a piece of metal flashing material. You can spray it all down with water before you start. Open enough of the wall up so you can see what you’re doing.

 

[hdtvkeith]

I m not sure a heat shield will fit as the pipe is that close to the paper on the back of the stub wall and that tub is tiled and cement board is the other side of the black roofing paper.

 

[Twowaxhack]

Cut the tar paper away. The whole valve looks roughed in too far forward actually, but I guess it worked for them.

 

[hdtvkeith]

I will try, but that paper is thin, will see what I can get in there.

 

[Twowaxhack]

Remove all the trim on the shower side of the valve, including the spout. You can leave the shower arm and head.

Remove the screws securing the rough valve to the framing.

Cut the 2x4 out of the way, approximately 8” above the shower riser connection to the rough valve and a few inches lower than the spout penetration through the wall. Careful not to cut your copper shower riser.

This will free up the valve so you can pull it away from the tar paper, however I’d remove the tar paper where I’m soldering.

After you install the new piping, install some more blocking and screw your rough valve to it. Replace your trim.

I prefer to use an oscillating tool to cut the framing out. It doesn’t shake or disturb the wall like a sawzall can.

 

[hdtvkeith]

Thanks. yeah that paper scares the crap out of me with a torch.

 

[hdtvkeith]

Because I am anal I had some design software we used when we remodeled so I overlaid the pipes. These 2 pics show the pipe layout for the upstairs form the perspective of the upstairs and the kitchen ceiling. It allows me to plan and determine what elbows and tees I need to I can lay everything out when I run the pipe and hopefully speed things up. Still working on the basement view that pipes the kitchen and laundry area.

 

[hdtvkeith]

So this is the master shower. This pic is from when we remodeled 7 years ago. I will be opening the wall behind this as the shower is all tile.

My thinking is cut the back 2x4 s away form the main valve and then remove the downward copper pipes and solder on a Copper to pex fitting at the downward elbow? I would leave the line to the diverter and those from the diverter alone.

 

[Twowaxhack]

Yes, connect to the newer copper if the copper is lasting 30+ years.

 

[hdtvkeith]

I have soldering copper in the past, just have to get comfortable doing it again, last time was probably 10 years ago. I ironically dumped all my solder stuff a few years ago while cleaning out basement.

 

[chris.lalos]

New joiner & lurker here ... This is a great thread. Is the PEX DIY still going well?

 

[hdtvkeith]

About to start, had a few distractions and been fighting with some copper fittings. Pipe arrived 3 days ago. Wound up doing Uponor becasue some of the Rehau fittings I needed were backordered for a month or more. I am pulling first few pipes tomorrow. I am drilling some extra holes so I can run a lot in parallel to minimize the water disruptions.

 

[fixitron]

I have had several clients with pinhole leaks. The leaks are almost always in 'M' pipe, not in 'L' and is almost always caused by acidic water. The solution is either marble chips or soda ash injection, depending on pH. If the copper connected to the shower valve is 'L', I would not be as concerned about connecting PEX to it and would consider using a Sharkbite to transition Cu to PEX.

 

[hdtvkeith]

OK spent the day building and sweating the hot and code sides of the hot water heater. All went pretty good since I have not sweat a pipe in over a dozen years. Why be so elaborate for his you may ask? I want to have a good area around the water heater that handles the split to my humidifier, on the hot side and then some to transition to Pex and on the cold side a structure that will support the expansion tank. I went with threaded fittings so that if I need to replace and pex I can easily remove a fitting, put a new fitting on and connect pex without having to sweat or SharkBite anything.

This is all L copped and I used tinning flux to help my lack of skills.

As I went to store them I noticed 2 joints that look concerning. Curious if I am over reacting and when I did each join the solder seems to wick down and in around sucked into each joint, but always hard to see the bottoms. Thought on the 2 closeups I provided?

 

[Twowaxhack]

Looks good to me. You can wire brush the joints and wash the flux off and get a better look.

Looks like you may be over heating it a little, maybe not. Even heat and not too hot, don’t burn your flux off.

I find it much easier to solder with air/acetylene than Mapp with those $50 and below hardware store torches.