If you have any pride at all, you won't leave the pex exposed. It is
ugly.




On 10 Mar 2007 14:46:04 -0800, wrote:

So I'd never even heard of PEX until yesterday...

Long story short, I hate the local hard water, decided I needed a
water softener, called the plumbing outfit that plumbed this less than
year old house, had them come back and give me a quote on installing
the appropriate sized water softener, was quoted $3000 installed... I
could have slapped the guy.

Decided I'd DIY it. I'm handy, an enginerdy kind of guy, and this
stuff doesn't scare me. I wouldn't attempt to solder copper tubing,
but, as you see, I may not have to.

I hacked a hole in the drywall to look at the plumbing underneath the
water heater closet, which has room for a softener. (The closet floor
is about 18" above the slab.) The pipes underneath look funny; they're
all plastic and red and blue. I now know that's called PEX and it
requires expensive tools. But I'm cool with that because they won't
cost me anything approaching $3000.

A little research on the interenet turned up Gary at
qualitywaterassociates.com, and I picked out the appropriately sized
water softening system.

Plotting my installation I'm thinking I'll break the main water input
line where it trees off to all it's branches. I'll run PEX through
holes in the closet floor, up to the softener, and back down to
complete the circuit.

I realize that this isn't elegant, that ideally the input and output
of the water softener would come through the closet wall, but hey,
doing that would entail a lot of hassle now.

My question for y'all: Is there anything out and out *wrong* about
this? I've never seen PEX before, presumably because it's only in new
houses, and always behind drywall. But this PEX won't be behind
drywall.

Am I committing some kind of capital offense (code violation) by
having exposed PEX in the closet? (or is it really exposed if it's in
a closet?)

Oh, and by the way, do need to make any special provision for PEX
passing through holes in the plywood floor? Perhaps there are nice
little plastic donut fittings designed for this purpose (anybody know?
what are they called?)

I guess the corollary question is: is it OK to have exposed PEX
plumbing underneath the kitchen sink? It's not behind drywall, but it
is concealed behind a cabinet...

Thank you for your help!