Zurn PEX

Bill Verdecchia

My personal answer

Steve,

I have offended every other manufacturer in the last few days with this thread (It was not my intention). I have received borderline threatening emails etc. All pex is good and if it meets the standards it's a quality product.

With regards to kink repairs, all I can only tell you that we have had an independent test labs test various types of tubing at elevated temp (311 deg F). These tests were done in a convective air oven without water in the tubing. At 311 deg F the tubing was not yet at kink repair temperature. Non-Zurn tubing began to desintegrate after only 168 hours when the stabilizers were exhausted. We stopped the test at 528 and the ZurnPEX was still tubing. I can't say that for the other methods of production.

I will not attempt to call this exposure typical, but I will tell you that it was an accelerated side by side test to evaluate stabilizer performance. Water in the tubing would prevent this elevated temperature in real life, but we were only evaluating thermal resistance performance.

The current standards evaluate production tubing. They do not evaluate kink repaired product. I can't tell you for sure if the results would change, but I am curious myself.

With the lack of additional test data, I would recommend not adding any additional heat histories to any pex tubing.

Bill

Unknown

Pc is as PC does

Wow Bill, very politically correct :-)

Like you I sure do wish that some of the other mans would chime in.

Almost all of us on "the Wall" use Pex all the time. Now we are uncovering(?) myths about thermal memory and the likelyhood of fast degredation of product. I'm beginning to wonder if I have been a a calf locked on a dark room being fed milk 24/7......

In the past I have had the oppertunity to sit and talk to many of the "fathers" and "grandfathers" of pex and they all said the only effect to the tube was the premature aging by a few years. Now it sounds like a few years may be more like 22 of the 25 year warranty.

I don't know, maybe I am just looking for Elvis (sorry Dan for the reference), but I would like imperical data showing claims by each manufacture and their kink repair claims.

20 years ago it was polybute and pex. Today we only have pex... A.... B..... & C. Phew. We know that ALL pex is good. Now I just want to know ehich is BEST :-) (and who has been feeding us milk)

Let's go MANs, time for y'all to step up to the plate.

wheels

PS - Bill, sorry you are taking flack from behind the scenes. It would be cool to see copie though :-)

bill clinton_3

pex quality

Perhaps more to the point than cross-linking method is quality control method. I have seen BAD pex. I have installed it. I have cut it out when I could. I had several cases where the above slab ends of installed pex hardened and embrittled to the point where they snapped off with any attempt to bend them. No, they had not been exposed to sunlight.

I don't believe that experience related to crosslinking method. I believe it had to do with quality control. So it would behoove us all to demand of manufacturers that they share with us their quality controls and perhaps compete on that basis.

Bill

Ken_8

The article sited is flawed.

The part suggesting copper corroded and in the same sentence suggesting it was installed improperly is dumb. It corroded BECAUSE it was installed improperly. Copper in concrete doe NOT corrode, no matter how desperately PEX manufacturers need for you to believe that lie to justify their huge profit margins.

The cheap and leaky manifolds, balancing valves, and grossy overpriced plastic junk needed to attach PEX to anything - including it self is a joke.

Copper pipe loves sun. alkalinity, abrasions, bending, and off the shelf commodity fittings from anything to anything at 1/10th the cost of PEX transition fittings. PEX looks like crap and should be used only when copper is impractical.

Take a look at two jobs. One in copper - thge other in PEX. Which would you want in your home?

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John Jr

Picture

Ken where did you get the picture that shows on your reply? That job was removed and redone last summer!
Circulators would not have lasted too long in that configuation.

Ken_8

I know.

That's not the point however. I think I critiqued it along with you!

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Jeff Lawrence_24

How to lie with Statistics

Ken,

You have singled out some of the Wall of shame pictures on your reply. You know that there are a lot of neat PEX jobs out there.

Most of us know how you feel about PEX.

First beer is on me (provided I don't get the same question as I did in Baltimore).

Jeff


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Weezbo

Gawd I'd chop the finger off the guy who did THAT to MY..

materials! the copper looks Good in the boiler room,on a board,that other batch of work looks like an absolute MESS.and thats speaking Well of it!

Weezbo

What? Never heard of pex X X ? )

Kal Row

that is a bottomless pit...

a brand name manufacture can have everything right – then an economic downturn shuffles upper management, and the new boss decides to save money by manufacturing elsewhere, and it all goes to hell, happened to Maytag, when they closed the New Mexico plant, and moved south of the border – their quality went south with it – on the other hand, a company like GE, went to the TQM (total quality management) manufacturing paradigm, and it has made their stuff from semi-mediocre to second to none, I know this hurts, but it doesn’t have to be American to be great – the LG corp ( conglomerate of (Chinese)Lucky co & (old Hong Kong) Goldstar corp) – also makes great stuff – cause they are committed to it!!! – no wonder Sears OEMs a lot of their stuff

So I wish there was a quick way to field test pex – cause the standards don’t mean a “thhaaang”!!! – kind-of makes a point, for sticking with one brand/type, - so you might be able to tell, if a roll just doesn’t feel right, before you put it in “cement overshoes”

For now though, being that Zurn is a relatively new kid on the pex block – I suspect they will try harder and make better stuff