Foreign Fittings

Geno_15

If you happen to go and pick up black fittings make sure they say " made in the USA. We just got some from China that were horrible. T's have one end out of line with the other two. Unions that go off on an angle. It's hard enough making something that looks straight!

I know I'm not saying anything that some don't already know but I think we should start returning them right off the bat. You can't use this junk.

Constantin

Interesting...

...your post implies that all foreign fittings are inferior to "Made in the USA" stuff. I would argue instead that buying bad fittings from low-cost producers in places like China, Thailand, etc. is the real source of the problem.

Until the folks over there start differentiating between brands (and prevent pirating as well) I suspect that using their fittings is a little akin to Russian Roulette. Statistically, 5 times out of 6, you'll get away with it...

Subsequently, I specc'ed 100% "Made in the USA" pipe and fittings for our house. Quality US stuff is more than adequate and hence there is no reason to import $$$ fittings from places like Germany. On the other hand, I would not want Home-Depot grade plumbing under pressure in my home.

However, I did go for a German boiler and control system. Go figure.

S Ebels

We've had

Sad to say but we've had more than a few US made fittings that I would place in the junk category. Last week we had a Ward union that was badly out of line. The threads were just plain bored crooked. Same thing with T's and L's. It's not a "foreign" problem. It's a quality control problem where ever it come from.

Ted_9

Although the chinese products are the worst.
Patriot Heating & Cooling, Inc.

EJW

Quality Control

How about vertical oil tank tappings??

Geno_15

WARD

Ward fittings were what we went to and all were good. I would say where we got the bad fittings but this is Dan's site and I'm not sure how he'd feel about that. It wasn't Home Depot, it was a major HVACR supply house which by the way still owes us part of the order. #$%^&&***

I would say check the fittings before leaving the supply house. Save youself a trip.

There's nothing I can think of {clean} that describes the feeling when you start to install something and it's no good out of the box. In front of the customer.

dave connors

foreign fittings

Sometimes we get what we are willing to pay for also.

Floyd_6

Hey!!!!

My barber is a forman at the foundry!!!!! And yes, that is the honest truth!!!
Send them to me, he would be interested in knowing about something that went out of there in less than perfect condition. I have had many conversations while getting my haircut about the this very thing. Those guys are my friends and neighbors, they sure do try to do a great job.
I could be that the fittings that you got were the ones made by the supervisors while the union had the workers out on strike during the recent contract negotiations. :-)
Because of the competition from overseas the company has been really working the guys over.....They also just had to install new scrubbers for the stacks of the foundry to keep the air clean... nothin' but a faint white smoke comin' from there now.....only a couple of million invested...if only China had clean air laws.....yeah right...

Floyd

Dave Bush

I had a Ward issue a couple weeks ago.

I just ran a 1' LP trunk line along a beam in a new house. The very first Ward 1" coupling that I installed looked like an ELL after I put the second piece of pipe into it.:(

After that there was a 90 that wasn't 90, but the rest of the fittings came out ok.

It's a real pain when the first fitting you put together has to come apart again because of sloppy manufacturing.

That WAS the first time I'd had problems ith Ward, though.

Sad to say that the fittings got tossed.

Geno_15

there's the rub

Foreign co's that run out of prisons or just don't have to meet safety air standards can have an edge on price but not quality, any product can have faults, I've never had a problem with a ward fitting but it is possible for a few, the fittings from China were just horrible, I will never buy one again.

Support US workers and demand USA products!!