Vangaurd systems

Big Will

Big Will

Vangaurd Systems

I'm working with an old Vangaurd System. What is the most reliable way to connect to it so there is no leaking?

hot_rod

old as in PB?

polybutylene, the gray tube? Sioux Chief still has some PB fittings inn their catalog.

If it is Pex any barbed pex fitting and crimp should work.

hr

Big Will

Thanks

my supplier said the same thing about the pex barb fitting and crimp ring. I am concerned about the problem with the pipe failing at the connections. My uncle has a modular piped with the polybutylene and the stuff failed every where at the fittings and they were the crimp type. I have seen a brass fitting that is like a compression fitting with a sleeve for the pipe ID. I am just wondering what you might have used and had good luck with. When I re-piped my uncles house with pex I connected the poly like it was wirsbo and used two of the rings one over the other. Their are only two connections like this and they are both for the shower. Holding for three years and counting.

Mark Eatherton

ShArk Bite fittings...

They're expensive, but they WORK.

ME

Big Will

I have used them a few times permanently. I use them to do my hydrostatic tests for inspection all the time because they are so easy to remove. Kinda makes me nervous to bury them in concrete.

hot_rod

The failures

were mainly the plastic insert fittings, and sometimes the early aluminum crimp rings. Once they switched to copper or brass fittings and and copper crimp rings it worked fine. Just like our current pex works with barbed insert fittings and crimp rings.

If you use a compression fitting, be sure it has the inner stiffener, the tube had a very thin wall and needed something inside to work with the compression fitting.

PB is still being installed in some countries for domestic water piping across the ocean.. The tube itself was OK for the most part, although no O2 barrier on the early stuff.

hr

Big Will

thank you Hot Rod

Thats the kind off thing my customer needs to know.