Got to my cabin, and had two burst pipes. Had lent it to some friends, and obviously they had not followed procedure on shutting down the water. I used Shark Bites to repair one place under the cabin, and one place in a 2x4 stud wall. What a joy to use for repairs.
Steve
Which fittings did you use?
I've used straight connectors, tees and caps.
I haven't tried any of the slip fittings yet. Did you?
I was watching a football game one time. When a commercial came on I went downstairs, turned off the main, cut the pipe to the backyard spigot, capped it with a SharkBite cap and turned the water back on, all before the commercial was over.
Other than the cost, they are great. For quick fixes and hard to sweat locations, they can't be beat.
Actually, they are all referred to as Push-Fit fittings, not slip fittings.
Only the ones at the bottom of this page are considered Slip Fittings/ Slip Couplings by Cash Acme:
Those are the ones I've never tried, although had I known they existed, I could have used one of the slip tees on a job I did. I was lucky to have just enough play to get a regular tee where I needed it but a slip tee would have been much easier.
I've sweated a complex multi-fitting section on the bench and then used a Sharkbite up in the joist bay to connect it to the existing pipe. Saved a bunch of money and work that way, plus no sweating in a confined space.
My guess (and it's only a guess) is that the slip section will only work on copper, but any opening with the stop will work on PEX also.
In my case I was Tee'ing a length of PEX off of the street pressure copper line that ran to the front hose spigot so I could have street pressure at the backyard spigot also. Originally the backyard spigot had been plumbed after the PRV.
I'm guessing that the Tee outlet would accept PEX. I can't imagine why that part of the fitting would be any different than any other SharkBite fitting since there is no "slip" involved there.
I'll certainly check before I attempt anything like that, but I'll be surprised if I'm wrong.
Yes, that's true but I don't think that's what we are discussing.
I used a Tee with copper into the 2 ends and Pex out of the Tee. At the other end I used an elbow with Pex in and copper out. We know we can mix and match materials with any of the non-slip fittings.
What Oren and I were chatting about was the fact that the website says the Slip fittings can only be used with copper. I was saying that I'd guess that it's only the long slip section - the end without the stop
- that only works with copper. I'd find it strange if there was something different about the "orifices" with the stops that prevents them from being used with Pex.
I think you've missed the point once again.
All of the SharkBite fittings - other than those few fittings specifically designated as "Slip Fittings/Slip Couplings" - can be used with copper and Pex at the same time. That's one of the beauties of SharkBites, the ease of transition from various types of material.
However, look at their website, way down at the bottom, where they have a subset of fittings that they specifically call Slip Fittings/ Slip Couplings.
Now look at the Slip Tee on the bottom of that page. The Tee port looks just like any other SharkBite port, so I maintain that you could use that specific port with Pex. I think that they mean that the Slip ports (the long side of the Tee that doesn't have a stop) can only be used with copper.
That's my understanding. You still have to cut out an inch of pipe to install them, but this is how I see them being used:
I needed a Tee to tap into a street pressure cold water pipe so I could run Pex from the front of the hosue to the back to get street pressure at the backyard spigot.
I didn't know about the slip fittings, so I used a "regular" SharkBite Tee. I cut out about 1" of copper so the connector would fit. Since you need an inch inside each end of the connector, you have to move one end or the other out of the way to get the connector in the "cut out opening". Luckily, by removing a couple of hangers, I was to gain enough play to be able to do this. So I connected the Tee to one open end of pipe, used the play to push the other end past the fitting then pulled it back and pushed it into the other side.
However, had I known about the slip fitting, I could have cut out 1" of pipe, moved one side of the pipe just enough to be able to slip the long end (the end without the stop) over the pipe, realigned them and then slide the fitting back over the other pipe until it hit the stop. There would have been no need to remove any hangers or hope that I had enough lateral play.
I can see other cases where there might not ever be enough play in the pipes to get a non-slip fitting in the gap.
One other thing that no one has mentioned about SharkBites: the fact that all SharkBite connectors swivel after installation. This makes them so convenient since you don't have to be precise like you do when sweating. The pipe I Teed into was attached to the bottom of the joists. I installed my Tee and then simply let the Pex rotate the fitting upwards as I attached the Pex up inside the joist bay. When I got to the other end, I let the Pex determine the angle of the 90 fitting that was attached to the copper that ran to the spigot.
Had I used sweat fittings, I would have had to angle everything just right and also had short lengths and more fittings to connect the front of the house to the rear. That was the reason I lived with house pressure at the backyard spigot for so many years. It would have been a major pain to run copper over the ductwork, having to sweat fittings only where I could get to them, make sure all the angles were sweated just right, etc.
As soon as I learned about SharkBites, I jumped on the project and was done in few hours. SWMBO was extremely happy since it cut her watering time for her gardens considerably.
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