On 5/29/2013 12:35 PM, nestork wrote:
Instead of buying a bunch of sharkbite fittings, why not just buy
yourself a PEX crimping tool, and that way you'll have the tool you need
to do repairs on your PEX plumbing in future. You can buy them for
under $100 nowadays.

I'm talking TWO, count 'em TWO fittings. If I can count on
sharkbite not to leak, the decision is easy.
It all boils down to whether the sharkbite is reliable when buried
outside. If it leaks, it won't destroy walls/ceilings. And I can easily
get it at to fix it.

There seem to be two camps. People who want to sell me services
don't get paid if I can just shove the pipe into the fitting.
Fittings salesmen seem to like it. And they sell me something
whether I use sharkbite or clamps.

If it wuz me, and it didn't cause any other problems, I would run 1 inch
pex tubing through your house and branch off to the kitchen, bathroom
and laundry rooms with 1 X 1 X 3/4 inch tees. Then branch off those 3/4
inch lines with 3/4 X 3/4 X 1/2 inch tees for the kitchen faucet hot and
cold and dish washer hot lines. Ditto in the laundry room; branch off
your 3/4 inch supply with 1/2 inch lines for both the washer hot and
cold and the laundry room sink hot and cold supply lines.

They did the same thing in my building (21 suite apartment block) when
they built it, but they started with 1 1/2 inch hot and cold water
supply pipes. They did that so that every tenant can have full water
pressure at their shower head when getting ready for work in the
morning, and full water pressure in their kitchen sink when washing
dishes in the evening. If it was all done with 1/2 inch copper pipe the
way some cheap houses are built now, tenants would be fighting over
water pressure.

The obvious advantage in doing that is that each 3/4 inch supply line
can supply full flow to TWO fixtures, sinks or appliances at the same
time, and so you don't have to be concerned about being scalded in the
shower if someone flushes the toilet, or the dish washer not working
having enough water pressure to pressure wash the food off the dishes

That's the kind of FUD that I'm getting from those trying to sell me
their labor. My dishwasher pressure is determined by the pump.
It ain't washing while it's filling. Input pressure/flow only affects
the time it takes to fill.


because the washing machine was filling at the time, etc.

But, truth be told, even if you did it with 3/4 inch Pex and branched
off with 1/2 inch supply lines, you'd seldom have a problem with water
pressure because you seldom open any faucet wide open, and even if you
do, the aerator on sink faucets, shower head or the resistance to flow
through water mixing valves restricts the flow anyway. A wide open
bathroom sink faucet with a water saver aerator on it will only have
between 1 and 2 gallons of water coming out of it per minute. They
don't have aerators on bathtub spouts cuz then you'd have the water
running for an hour before you could have a bath.