Aquatherm?

rebmech

I have been looking at some other systems out there, looking for some comments (good and bad) about using the aquatherm piping for my boiler rooms. I am more of a copper guy but curious about his product

Peter Turk

Be careful of thermal expansion

Aquatherm was getting some legs a year and a half ago when the price of copper was going thru the roof. One of the disadvantages is that the plastic pipe has much higher thermal expansion coefficient than copper.

SpeyFitter

Done Lots!

The company I work for does a lot of it. I will copy & paste a post I did in a thread earlier this year for you:



I use this stuff fairly regularly.



The medium Iron which does 3/8" (16 MM) to 2" (63 MM) fully outfitted with the heads to do both the fittings and the saddles is around $1500



IF you want to do anything above 2" (63 MM) you will need the big Iron, and you will need to buy the Jig which is a impact drill powered set of jaws that help you join/push the bigger pipe & fitings together (works for 63 MM to 125 MM i.e. 2" to 4"). This is when you are looking at big $$$ for tools - I think around $10,000+ after all is said and done, with I think the Jig costing around $7500 of that if I recall correctly.



Aquatherm WILL last longer than Copper if properly installed. The pipe & fittings are cheaper than Copper. When you are set up, it installs faster than Copper too. Only issue IS you need to really plan out your fusions relative to the size of the Iron and tight places. In some cases you may need to do some, or a lot of pre-fab to avoid fusions in tight places or awkward areas. It SERIOUSLY puts the 'T' in Tradesmen, and I mean that.



To do this stuff you really have to slow down and stop thinking about puking Copper in, but instead doing good work, and proper fusions.



Also, when pricing, you need to allow for more hours testing. Instead of a 200 PSI water pressure test for the inspector, you need to do the regular test for the inspector, PLUS you need to complete the Aquatherm warranty testing which is a series of 3 tests, to get their 6.5 Million Euro Insurance Policy (not warranty, Insurance policy). You must test areas or systems of pipe and record what areas/floors you are testing, and how many feet of what type of pipe are in each area. The test involves stressing the joints using differing pressures, which is supposed to show weak joints pretty quickly. Then you submit the completed, passed test form to Aquatherm.



To get the full fire rating on this stuff you need to insulate it with the Aquatherm Reflectix insulation. With this insulation and the R-value of the pipe, if I recall correctly it means the pipe wall has around R-6.5 walls. This insulation is much, much nicer to work with than typical fiberglass, if you don't get a seperate insulation contractor.



Aquatherm has 3 or 4 pipes you might use - the SDR 11 which is for cold water only (mainly green pipe with blue stripe), the SDR 7.4 which is for hot water or cold water (it has more fibers, and thicker wall to reduce expansion - green pipe with green striple), and the Climatherm (equal green and blue stripes) which is for heating/cooling/swimming pools. There is also another pipe that they just came out up here with that is called "lilac" which is purple and is used for Reclaimed water systems which you will find on these buildings. The lilac colour is used in Australia if I'm not mistaken, or is it Florida, where they run reclaimd water mains down the street and the purple colour readily identifies this pipe for it's reclaimed water purpose. All of the above pipes use the same fittings.



For swimming pool (chlorine) applications they do offer some stainless adapters that you can fuse on as well.



Keep in mind that when you use this stuff, if you size or pick your building PRV for more flow, you can get away with smaller pipe sizes. Where Copper is typically 4-5 feet per second, Aquatherm can do 8 feet per second, which if the PRV allows it, means you can reduce the pipe sizes further. Also, I am told that they are trying for more than 10 feet per second with this stuff for ceritification anyways. According to an Emco contact, they could probably do 16 feet per second with no problems but anything above that will suffer from pipe noise. You may want to run this smaller pipe thing by the engineer to resize the mains and such if it gets approved.



They also have specific Aquatherm hangers that look like Sonic/Microfix clamps with green rubber instead of black rubber inserts. These hangers have spacers you can use if you think the pipes may need to slide a bit from expansion/contraction.



The nice thing about this stuff - they don't use hardcore (or any) metals for stabilizers to help it last like PVC or CPVC. You don't off gas VOC's like you do when you're gluing PVC, CPVC, or soldering Copper so it's better that way. It's also highly recycelable unlike PVC and CPVC, and it's apparently extremely pure, has high chemical resistance, and won't leech into the pipe as readily as other plastics. When you fuse the joint, if done properly the pipe and fitting are now one, permanently. If you cut a properly fused joint you will have a difficult time finding the seem where they joined together.





The downsides to this pipe? Well if you have a leak, it's a PITA to cut a new fitting in, and you can't just repair/resolder it. Fusing in tight places sucks, especially bigger pipe. It's more difficult to make look nice - it's easy to cockeye a fusion into a fitting. Like I said above, it REALLY puts the 'T' back in tradesman. If you have to remember one thing out of everything I have said in this long winded post, it's you HAVE to, absolutely HAVE to resist the temptation to try and slam this stuff in. SLOW DOWN, think about it. You are not going to make $$$ more money by becoming a hero and puking this stuff in. Slow down, think and plan your fusions, work with the general contractor and other trades to make sure you have lots of space to complete your fusions as this stuff is NOT friendly for tight places. And overall do a good job. SLOW DOWN.

You can use the most environmentally friendly pipe in the world but if the stuff doesn't last because you didn't do a good job then it requires repair or replacement which further hurts the environment. It's an overall committment, not just to make money but to make it better, and last longer.  

zacmobile

what he said^^

I have done 2 larger residential and 1 light commercial system and have been very happy with it. I agree with just about everything Scott mentioned although I 'm pretty sure the jig for larger sizes wasn't quite that much coin, and anyway my rep said they were getting one domestically made in Vancouver BC for around $3000. Also shipping times can be a nuisance if you're short a couple of fittings, you can't just drive over to the wholesaler and pick up a couple things as no-one is fully stocking it yet, so best to thoroughly plan your job in advance, and order extra of common fittings like elbows etc.