Venting, with a do-it-yourselfer warning....

[Spittybug]

I'm originally from the NE, but have lived in Houston 15 years. We had our house built in 1998 and I was surprised that they used CPVC for the hot and cold water supplies. I was used to code only allowing copper. I suppose the lower cost and ease of installation were benefits. Well, I've discovered the downside............. It gets brittle near the joints. I'm guessing the gluing process weakens the plastic and then time does it's thing. Pedro the plumber has some odd methods too... instead of bridging between two studs with a 2x4 to give a solid mounting point for pipes, he bridged by merely extending the pipe to the next stud and capping it. The T in the line then became where he poked through the wall for the shutoff valve and faucet supply. Speaking of which, this metal corrugated tubing (like conduit) and body is attached to the CPVC with a compression fitting, which for reasons unknown, he felt he had to wrap the ferule in Teflon tape.:hmm: Why do I know this? While renovating my powder room, I went to replace the fixtures and simply the act of removing the pigtails from the ends of the valves (very carefully!) was enough strain to crack the damned PVC behind the wall. Do you realize how much water comes out? Now my wife understands why I don't want her crap in the base cabinet in the kitchen through which I access the shut off valve. I don't think I've ever run so fast and thrown so much shit across the kitchen. Even so, the ground floor (luckily) powder room flooded and escaped into the garage and under the baseboards. Thank god for shop vacs.

Oh, by the way, I did this 3 months ago too in the same bathroom when disconnecting the toilet tank. Even being super careful I did it again.

The moral of the story? If you've got CPVC pipes, BE FRIGGIN CAREFUL! Then are TOTALLY inflexible when older and WILL crack. I prefer copper needless to say.

[Notifier]

I was working in a hotel where they use three different hot water temperatures, 120°F, 140°F, and 160°F. I assume one was for the domestic taps, one for the kitchen, and one for the laundry. Anyway, in the mechanical room all three pipes were running in parallel, all CPVC, all installed at the same time. The hotter the water in the pipe, the darker the outside of the pipe was! There was definitely some reaction with the pipe and temperature of the water. I would bet the hotter pipe was more brittle.

[DashEight]

I was a manager at a warehouse a few years back. I had a guy hit a fire sprinkler with a forklift and knock the head off. I have never seen people move as fast in my life. I bolted to the sprinkler cut off valve, they open the dock doors and we had anyone available around sweeping the water outside after moving pallets of product out from under the broken head. All in about 2-3 minutes. The fire department showed up when they saw the drop in water pressure on their sensor. I could not believe the amount of water in those pipes once it had an out route to drain. The warehouse was 850,000 square feet. We bought everyone new shoes the next day from the sediment in the lines that came out with the H2O. Crazy day that was...

[Jimmyvonviggle]

The early pex pipes and similar brands are know to have some manufacturing problems. Today's pipes are much better, but with that being said nothing beats copper. Unfortunately the ease of installation will make it so in a few years no plumber will know how to solder.

[Notifier]

I was a manager at a warehouse a few years back. I had a guy hit a fire sprinkler with a forklift and knock the head off. I have never seen people move as fast in my life. I bolted to the sprinkler cut off valve, they open the dock doors and we had anyone available around sweeping the water outside after moving pallets of product out from under the broken head. All in about 2-3 minutes. The fire department showed up when they saw the drop in water pressure on their sensor. I could not believe the amount of water in those pipes once it had an out route to drain. The warehouse was 850,000 square feet. We bought everyone new shoes the next day from the sediment in the lines that came out with the H2O. Crazy day that was...

Fire sprinkler water is pretty nasty. And what's scary is that it's usually for larger buildings, the domestic is tied right off before the sprinkler system! I work on sprinkler systems every day so I know first hand what the stuff looks and smells like. I was draining a sprinkler system yesterday, the water first came out "coffee", then it had more of an "iced tea" look to it, then went black (never though water could be that color) before finally turning into a light gray. Microbiological Influenced Corrosion (MIC) exists in sprinkler piping - including things living inside the sprinkler piping like zebra mussels. So yeah, not a pretty clean water that comes out of those things like in the movies!

[DMCVegas]

Fire sprinkler water is pretty nasty. And what's scary is that it's usually for larger buildings, the domestic is tied right off before the sprinkler system! I work on sprinkler systems every day so I know first hand what the stuff looks and smells like. I was draining a sprinkler system yesterday, the water first came out "coffee", then it had more of an "iced tea" look to it, then went black (never though water could be that color) before finally turning into a light gray. Microbiological Influenced Corrosion (MIC) exists in sprinkler piping - including things living inside the sprinkler piping like zebra mussels. So yeah, not a pretty clean water that comes out of those things like in the movies!

So very true. It's not an everyday occurrence, but does happen in Vegas on occasion: Couple goes to Vegas to get married. Bride to be in her hotel room goes to hang up wedding dress, but since the train is so long she decides to hang it off a sprinkler head on the wall to keep it higher off the ground. Marriage is not off to a good start when the dress is ruined after all that nasty discharge is sprayed all over it and she gets stuck with a few thousand dollars worth of cleanup fees as they replace the carpet, sheets, wallpaper, TV & electronics and reupholster the furniture that was all ruined from that nasty discharge.

When a hotel asks for a credit card for "incidentals", it's not just the booze in the minibar that they want to make sure you pay for.

On a more related note, yes, Houston construction amazes me. And in a bad way. My in-laws out in Katy have a home that just frightens me in their attic. I'm used to rafters that are cut on an angle, notched, or otherwise some how fully supported by joists. Nope. They just continue on down to the eves and barely with a tiny portion resting and just some thin brackets holding them in place. Coming from California and Nevada where things are built for earthquakes, this just boggles my mind. Especially in an area with hurricanes where you want a roof to be attached as strongly as possible.

The other thing I've noticed in Houston is that they just LOVE PEX Tubing for water lines. The in-laws have a Manabloc valve setup, which they love because they don't have to go outside to turn the sprinklers on and off... Still though, no word on how long PEX lasts compared to copper.

http://www.leducanddexterplumbing.com/p-vanguard-big.jpg

[Dangermouse]

On a more related note, yes, Houston construction amazes me.

Georgia construction contractors did not need to be qualified or licensed before 2004. :eek7: Hard to believe.

[Notifier]

I believe PEX was widely used in Europe for several years without any serious issues. Just recently has been adopted for use in the states and like any new thing there is always skepticism. And rightly so, who remembers the polybutylene pipe mess (the gray pipe) from all the piping that was installed back in the 90's?

But you gotta watch those builders, especially the build them quick and cheep neighborhoods. I did some work in this woman's attic years ago, new home, she had lived there a year. Well, the builder had forgotten to put insulation in her attic. How this house passed a final building inspection is beyond me. Assuming one was even done!