Water pipe size questions

[jamesgangnc]

Bob's right about the hot water delay, it is longer in my masterbath. There is a garden tub and I turn that on hot for a minute before I shower. But it's a waste of water.

Pex is really designed with the professional plumber in mind. It's the fastest to install in new work with a minimum of on hand parts. A pro can do a new house in a fraction of the time it took to do copper. Plus pex pipe can adapt to poorly drilled and misaligned holes better as well. If you go pex you probably should just buy a crimper. They are cheaper online and you can find them with exchangable heads.

There really is nothing wrong with cpvc. It's been around a while.

I agree, it sounds like your valve has built in restriction. You may be able to disassemble it and get more thru flow by enlarging openings. I've done that on valves and shower heads.

[Stormin Mormon]

That's likely to get you arrested by the same cops who inspect matress and pillows to see if the tags have been removed.

Perhaps one of us should read Zootal's old messages, and see if the shower ever did function well. Could be valve, or piping restriction, now. Or, water meter, or partial frozen lead in pipe from the street, or... or....

[blueman]

Do you also bring teflon tape? Also, be careful about carrying tools on airplanes... I once had a small allen wrench confiscated because the sign said "no tools" -- I tried to explain that an L-shaped 3" long piece of blunt hexagonal metal is not a weapon but I guess the droid thought that my pale-white, American family traveling together on vacation was obviously more of a danger than the Middle Eastern travelers with turbans and burkhas... go figure...

[Oren]

Just for clarity, "sharkbite" connectors are not an essential component or part of a PEX system - just something folks use, if they like.

I can see your shock about cost, but they are not needed...

[Robert Neville]

And an additional point - the economics of PEX have to be looked at as a system

- and that includes labor, not just material. If a two man crew can plumb an entire house in a day with PEX, but sweating copper would take a week, paying more for the material makes sense.

[Bob F]

Another possible solution. Replace the shower head with a really good "low-flow" head. Because it is designed for low flow, the shower valve limitation might not be a problem for the low-flow head. It will naturally have better pressure on the low flow.

[auggie]

i had a similer problem with pressure and it seemed the hot was not so hot even with the heater turned up beyond recomondations ... turned out a rubber gromet piece inside the valve on the hot side behind the mixer had broken off and blcoked more than half the flow, the mixer slowed down to componsate .. one of those no scald valves