copper pex manifolds?

Ron Schroeder_3

when there are so many really fine heating manifolds on the market to simplify your life?

archibald tuttle

copper pex manifolds?

I purchased some pex manifolds that were I think 1 inch copper mains about a foot long with maybe a half dozen 1/2 inch branches.

They were solid copper. I think the branches were mechanically clamped into the main and soldered but my memory fails me (too much eating out of aluminum pots).

Both the 1" main and the 1/2" branches were knurled and sized for direct crimping of pex so no adapter soldering was necessary.

I bought these from a distributor who was selling RTI at the time, but I think these might have been from a different manufacturer, but I'm not sure. I know RTI had a nylon manifold system, but they might also have offered these copper units, I'm not sure.

Trying to find similar units if anyone knows of any.

My same wholesaler has 1 1/4 copper mains with 3/4 branches in 18 branch units that you can buy and cut where you need, but these are both oversize to me needs and not made to accept pex directly so I would have to solder conversion adapters on them all and they would be more expensive adapters to go from 3/4 to 1/2 inch. THis may still be my most practical solution but if anyone has a line on the style of manifold I have used in the past I would appreciate a note.

Thanx,

Brian

archibald tuttle

Fred,

I'm confused. I am looking for a pex manifold. At least that I believe is the question I asked. MAybe you're suggesting that I should be looking at one or more of the proprietary stackable valve manifolds of brass or nylon or some such. I have had great success with the copper direct crimp manifolds in the past and no soldering. The pex valves are cheap and the per branch cost, labor and materials was much lower than various of the fancy manifolds.

In the good old days of polybeautiful, I used to solder up my own manifolds with copper "t"s , 1/2" ball valves and solder by crimp adapters, so I considered these direct crimp branch manifolds to be a vast improvement at an affordable price.

I did find WIRSBO copper manifolds with valves built in on line for about $10 per branch. That is fairly competitive as it saves me two crimps per branch putting in the valve and makes the valve mount a little more solid although on a short length of pex they were fine. The RTI pex valves were running me about $3 something a shot and the brazed manifolds were about $4 per branch so that is only $7 per branch but I had to perform those couple extra cutting and crimping operations so these WIRSBO units could be just what I'm looking for.

I'm still using my RTI crimping tool and my wholesaler has a new supplier (don't even know what their name is as I pretty much have been buying fittings and crimps and there is no name label on them) that uses the same tool and I presume the fittings and crimps are essentially the same spec. All the pipe I'm dealing with was put in before they were out of the RTI stock.

I'm assuming the RTI pipe will crimp alright onto the WIRSBO manifolds. I've crimped polybeautiful onto the RTI fittings in a pinch, so in a basement setting with reasonable back up and clamping on the pipes and manifolds I'd probably give it a whirl with the Whirsbo units, but, if anyone has any thoughts ...

Ron Schroeder_3

Sorry Brian

I saw your catchy heading "copper pex manifolds" and thought your were T drilling or soldering copper fittings together on site.

TJ_3

Zurn makes a couple real nice copper manifolds. I just installed one. It was a 6 ft long piece of 1" copper with 24 1/2 copper outlets about 4" on center (the outlets were brazed on) I soldered Zurn 1/2 sweat X pex valves right onto the 1/2" copper stubs. I think the 24 outlet manifold was about $ 70. I had enough there for two small jobs (one job was a five outlet the other was a six outlet.

kevin coppinger_4

Sioux Chief....

has them. kpc

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Ewan

So does

Alberta Custom Tee