Solder

Robert_25

ChrisJ said:

I have both nokarode tinning and oatey tinning flux and both seem to work good but I felt the oatey was a little better.

The Bridgit just seems to flow really nice in general.

I tried using Oatey tinning flux on a project a few months ago, and I found it basically unusable due to how thick it was. It was about 65F in the basement, and my brush would barely scratch the surface of the flux. I ended up with a container of Nokorode cold weather flux and that was a joy to work with.

ChrisJ

Youngplumber said:

@ChrisJ I actually thought about bending stainless tubing for portions of my loop. 

We bend 1.66" OD SS tubing all the time for hand rail.

hot_rod

ChrisJ said:

hot_rod said:

One think to watch with pex is constantly circulated DHW loops. At 140, with high chlorine and velocity over 2 fps there seems to be some tube failures. I think all the pex brands are putting tight requirements on dhw recirculation installations.
How many plumbers actually know or calculate velocity in their recirc loops?
More often than not recirc pumps are oversized, often grossly so. Same issues with copper and PPT on high temperature high chlorine systems.
All piping materials have pros and cons.

The oldest materials I have seen still in use are galvanized steel

I would think welded 316 stainless steel pipe would hold up really well if anyone could afford it.

I'm glad the last of my galvanized piping is finally gone.

You mean like 316 indirect tanks and boilers? They fail on a regular basic, I suspect many due to water quality, high chlorides in particular.
Something like 80% of the US has hard water, chlorides play a role in the TDS numbers.

Minnesota seems to be number 1 with chloride issues. Probably not the best place to be installing metals that are chloride sensitive. or at least put in writing "no warranty"

ChrisJ

hot_rod said:

ChrisJ said:

hot_rod said:

One think to watch with pex is constantly circulated DHW loops. At 140, with high chlorine and velocity over 2 fps there seems to be some tube failures. I think all the pex brands are putting tight requirements on dhw recirculation installations.
How many plumbers actually know or calculate velocity in their recirc loops?
More often than not recirc pumps are oversized, often grossly so. Same issues with copper and PPT on high temperature high chlorine systems.
All piping materials have pros and cons.

The oldest materials I have seen still in use are galvanized steel

I would think welded 316 stainless steel pipe would hold up really well if anyone could afford it.

I'm glad the last of my galvanized piping is finally gone.

You mean like 316 indirect tanks and boilers? They fail on a regular basic, I suspect many due to water quality, high chlorides in particular.
Something like 80% of the US has hard water, chlorides play a role in the TDS numbers.

Minnesota seems to be number 1 with chloride issues. Probably not the best place to be installing metals that are chloride sensitive. or at least put in writing "no warranty"

That is a very good point, assuming they actually use 316SS.
Do you feel copper tanks would hold up better?

mattmia2

I found some Silva-Brite on ebay from about 3 changes of ownership ago that was a full spool.

I like the Otey tinning flux because it is thick, you end up only brushing on the very thin film you actually need, you don't end up with excess flux everywhere(although I think the version i bought 20 years ago was softer)