"Stretch" wrote:

If your polybutylene pipe is assembled with copper crimp rings and
copper or brass fittings, you should have no problems. The poly tubing
was not ever the problem. The problem occured when it was assembled
with aluminum crimp rings and/or acetyl (grey plastic) fittings. So
check your installation. If there are no aluminum crimp rings and no
plastic crimp fittings, you have nothing to worry about.

This is quite the wrong advice.

PB piping (regardless of fittings) in certain types of chlorinated
water will lose its elasticity and develop cracks and eventually leak.
No need for panic though. It depends on the chemicals and quantity
thereof used by your local water supplier as to the likelihood of
leaking (e.g. major problems in FL; none or little in the Northeast).

There is also a problem with the fittings due (I'm not 100% sure of
the reason) to poor installation when using a crimp fitting.
Apparently the tool used to do the crimping is very sensitive to
errors in adjustment and if it's not adjusted properly leaks will
eventually occur. However compression fittings using internal aluminum
rings, a compression washer, and gray acetyl nuts are in the clear and
continue to be used today with PEX, the successor to PB.

There's lots of Chicken Little horror stories promoted by the usual
suspects, the plumbers angling for work, but if you google
"polybutylene" you can find the class action settlement sites. Note
particularly the photos of the problem (and the non-problem) fittings
on:

http://www.pbpipe.com/photos.htm