On 4/26/15 7:49 AM, Stormin Mormon wrote:
I can't figure it. The original leaks were much faster. Logically, I
knew they had to be above the shelf, but I could find no moisture.

Someone else can find you a link. My memory says that
type of tubing is known for leaking. I'd get some
quotes on replacing all that tubing with some more
modern tubing. Pex might work better.

I'd love a link to explain how you can have a big leak with no moisture.
After the plumber determined that the leaks must have been above the
shelf, I said I must have imagined that water was pouring through the
floor like a waterfall because we'd both seen that everything on the top
side was dry. He said he'd seen how wet everything below was. I said,
"Poltergeist!"

Polybutylene was used for district geothermal heating projects in
Germany and Austria at 128F and 150 psi in the early 1970s. Other kinds
of pipe have had to be replaced in the last 45 years, but the
polybutylene still works.

It's still used almost everywhere but the US. In countries with a K,
such as the UK, Korea, and Kuwait, it has a big share of the residential
market. If Kansas and Kentucky would revise their building codes, I'm
sure it would work fine there.

Where polybutylene subjected to high tensile stress, at a kink or a hard
compression fitting, chemicals in chlorinated water can cause whitening,
which can, in a few years, progress to failure. Soft compressions
fittings seem to prevent trouble.

Maybe the fittings below the kitchen sink began to leak because those
taps were used so many times each day, and those connections, closest to
the taps, were subjected to the biggest pressure changes. In the cabinet
under the sink, those valves could have been pushed by storing something
agains them, which would have increased tensile stress at the connectors.

How about Tigerbite connectors? Push-on connectors using O-rings. That
sounds soft! Easy to disassemble and reassemble, too. How about the
wrench-type compression connections used with plastic pipe. Can they be
taken apart and put back together?