origin of pex

Charlesj

I've heard refrence in here a few times that using pex for plumbing started in Europe...Where ? My wife is from Ireland & knows alot of people in Ireland & England. My father in-law was in the building trades in both counties awhile back and no one has heard of it & knows on one that has it...New million dollar houses in my father in-laws town & no pex....So where was it used.....

Weezbo

well, .....

look at Wirsbo international.site, Rehau International site....Stadler i am going to make a leap of faith and say the entire History of crosslinked bonding and such will be adequately addressed along with who did what when...oh where and why (No more saturday night live info commercials ) Oh my eyes you were only made to see the truth....

Ken_8

Despite the fact that

the euros would have us believe it is used all over, the fact is it is rare and was invented because the cost of alternatives - like steel and copper were rare and costly in bombed out europe. After they destroyed a bunch of equipment from oxygen permeation the few who did use it regretted it immensely. The cheapness of the materials, despite its terrible thermal transfer rate was so attractive for general plumbing installs, which were not adversely impacted by the O2 problem, forced its popularization in a few more bombed out areas.

When radiant systems were found to be viable in the US in the '40's, the Euro's copied it trying to make it cheaper and were moderately successful after the States was rampant with the copper and/or steel versions (many of which still function beautifully here in the U.S. after 50+ years of service) and ran amuck of the O2 problem basically blowing up european radiant designs until they could either afford metal tubing or solve the O2 "nightmares." They kept the cheap plastic stuff and discovered the cross linking reduced the O2 problem and despite the terrible thermal trasnfer characteristics of plastic tubing, through huge marketing campaigns, convinced a handful of contractors in North America that this was the best ever. Having completely overcome the successful engineering of the 1940's and '50's installs here in N.A., their marketing efforts have been fairly successful.

I too have been to Europe many times and find no PEX installs anywhere. Other than ISH and a handful of new construction in very urban areas mostly in Germany, which is hardly representative of all the countries in Europe - despite being the banking/financialcenter of Europe, no one can afford it and few install it there.

In all of Ireland and Scotland, I never met anyone or heard of anyone having PEX radiant heating.

Consider the anomoly that when we say Euro radiant PEX, we are speaking strictly about and extremely small purely German urban design with almost no involvement with people like you and me.

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Scott Denny

History of Pex

From Greatest Plumbing & Heating Inventions (Prior to 1975)
c Plumbing & Mechanical Magazine 1992
Wirsbo PEX Tubing
In 1968, Thomas Engel invented a process for producing chemically cross-linked polyethylene (PEX) tubing. Considered impossible by many heating industry experts, Wirsbo Co. used Engle's technology to develop a practical manufacturing process for PEX tubing. The cross-linked tubing was introduced to the European floor heating market in 1972 and potable water market in 1973.

PEX tubing solved a number of problems that occurred with metal pipes and some other types of plastic tubing. PEX will not corrode or erode, and is immune to the many problems associated with poor water quality that can damage metal pipes. The tubing is rated at 180 degrees F., 100 psi. Wirsbo tubing also has the highest polymer oxygen diffusion barrier of any tubing in the world, according to the company.

The growth of cross-linked polyethylene tubing has been dramatic in the European market. Today about 10 percent of all plumbing installations are made with PEX tubing, and in some countries over 50 percent. In Europe, where radiant floor heating is installed in over 50 percent of all new construction, PEX tubing goes into approximately 70 percent of all jobs.

Wirsbo-PEX was introduced to the U.S. plumbing market in 1985 by Tomas Lenman. Now director of technology at Wirsbo Co. in Apple Valley, Minn., Lenman was a leading member of the engineering team that developed the product in the early 1970s. Today, PEX tubing products are used for floor heating and other heating applications.

Arthur

Pex

Interesting subject.
Back in 1989 I did an installation for a heating supply company here using just ordinary plastic pipe without an oxygen barrier and with steel radiators, just recently while talking to the manager he mentioned it was still going great, I also did a couple installations in School general purpose hall using heavy duty poly pipe in the early 80's. As far as I know these are still going ok. These systems had a steel boiler and steel rads into classrooms on the same system,
The above heating supply company now imports a pex pipe called 'Unipipe' which is made by a company 'Uponor'from Germany. Now some time ago I read that Inpipe was the 3rd largest manufacturer of 'Pex' pipe in the world, however their sales engineer would hear none of this and verminly claimed that Unipipe was the BIGGEST maker and that the parent co 'Uponor' made the machines for other firms like Wirsbo to use to make pex? He had been to their factory ETC ETC
Whether he is right or wrong I don't know.
But I would be certainly interested to know,(especially if he's wrong) the next time I run into him. LOL.

Uni R

Uponor is the parent company of Wirsbo

Unipipe, Ecoflex and Wirsbo are all part of Uponor. Unipipe does sound the best though, or maybe that's just me! L

ScottMP

When in Germany

two years ago I visited many buildings being built with pex. I also visited one of Uponur's factorys that was pumping out differant versions of pex that is used all over Europe and not for US sales.

Someone is using it.

Most home construction that I visted where new and saw very little renovation. I think do to the nature of the age and building construction very little renovation is done with pex and most new construction use's nothing but.

Scott

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DanHolohan

It's in the Library

Origin of PEX

It pays to wander off the Wall.