"Chip C" wrote in message
oups.com...

toller wrote:
I have never used PEX, but I understand it will survive freezing
water. Is
that correct?

I had a 3/8" soft copper pipe freeze and burst. A plumber put it in
a
couple years ago when he installed a dishwasher. There is a dip in
it where
it goes under a joist, so when drained my pipes last fall water
pooled in it
and froze.
There is no particular reason it shouldn't happen again; I am
surprised it
didn't happen the previous two years. However getting to it to work
a drain
pipe would be a real pain. I could blow it out with compressed air,
but
that wouldn't be so easy either.
Is it reasonable to replace it with PEX; without spending serious
money on
tools. I only want one 3' piece. How would I attach it to the 3/8
copper?

Thanks.

The advantage to Pex is that it's flexible enough that you may be able
to drill through the joist and fit the pex through the hole so there's
no low spot. Whatever you do, you should try to avoid a low spot like
that.

Around here some of the bigboxes carry something called "ipex aqua".
It's a sandwich of pex on thin aluminum; its chief advantage seems to
be that the fittings are tightened with wrenches, no special crimp tool
needed. The only special tools that are "mandatory" are a pipe cutter
and a reamer, each about $10. It has combination fittings for other
materials, including both sweat and compression ones for copper. I
bought a length of it for a small job like yours but haven't used it
yet.

Like regular pex, the literature suggests it may be slightly more
tolerant of freezing than copper but still cautions strongly against
letting it freeze.

Thats a good idea. If I run it though a joist I can get it to slope.
thanks