Antex Pipemaster Pro - quick review

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Crikey. That's one of your best wriggles for ages. You should stand for parliament.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Solder ring are much more expensive than end feed - and if you can solder Yorkshires ok, end feed shouldn't be a problem.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Perfectly possible with enough heat. Not something you'd try and do in a confined space, though.

Anything which is soldered together can be unsoldered. And the copper ain't going to get damaged - unless you do so by trying to separate it before the solder is melted.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Never thought of wiping any excess off? Although with a bit of practice, there shouldn't be any excess.

[Dave Liquorice]

Or neatness, I don't like the buldge on solder ring fittings.

Meh, that's what your bit of "moleskin" is for. To wipe the joints like a real plumber. B-)

[John Rumm]

I was thinking of a polite repost to that, but the word I keep coming back to is "bollocks".

Plumbers are usually cost sensitive, so will opt for end feed as its cheaper, however I have not many any that refuse to use soldering in situations where it makes the job quicker or easier.

Not all are created equal. Lets face it, it they were all highly skilled experts, they would be on usenet talking about it instead of doing it.

[Onetap]

On Monday, July 29, 2013 6:35:11 PM UTC+1, dennis@home wrote: >

Someone who has mastered soldering = someone who can solder end feed fittings neatly, without leaving solder runs down the pipe. Lots of practice required.

[Onetap]

Not a problem I've encountered. Then again, I happen to have several hundred end-feed fittings in the shed. ;-)

[RJH]

What are the main disadvantages of plastic, apart from materials cost?

[Tim Watts]

On Monday 29 July 2013 19:47 RJH wrote in uk.d-i-y:

Bulky, not mouse proof and o-ring seals are less proven than soldered fittings.

However, to be fair, even copper has had it's problems with poor quality batches pinholing.

Though, I prefer pinholing as a failure mode vs sudden gush. I also avoid flexi tails where possible.

If I did not want to solder or use compression, I would use cuprofit with copper. That just leaves the o-ring.

[Onetap]

Thermal expansion, sags all over the place when it's hot. Bulky fittings look unsightly. It's not really suitable for installation anywhere visible. Mice. You can scratch it, dragging it through holes in joists and then find the fittings leak. You can't drag (half-hard) copper through holes in joists. Oxygen permeable; the barrier layer is usually a surface coating and can get rubbed off. No scrap value, not recyclable.

[dennis]

Copper sags if you don't clip it properly.

The fittings are the same as copper except for solder, you can use cuprofit and compression if you want.

Compression fittings on copper leak if you are clumsy enough to scratch the pipe.

You can if the end is accessible and you line up the holes well enough.

Its a three layer extrusion on all the plastic barrier pipes I have seen.

You could recycle it, there doesn't appear to be anyone doing so. There isn't much of it scrap ATM, maybe in 30 years there will be. I have reused it when doing plumbing changes.

[Tim Watts]

On Tuesday 30 July 2013 11:19 dennis@home wrote in uk.d-i-y:

You'd clean it up anyway prior to soldering.

Both are a lot better than lead which would split at the first sight of frost.

I've had JG Speedfit outside for several winters, frozen and it survived (plastic has some give).

[dennis]

My parents had lead mains and they regularly froze and leaked.

I have had some PB pipe and some copper pipe outside for over 25 years. They have frozen a few times. the tap burst once. the copper pipe pushed the joint out a couple of times. the pressure reducer burst once.

The plastic has survived so far. I usually drain it all but as you can tell from above I have forgotten to do so.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

You'd solder dirty pipe? Stick to plastic.

[dennis]

You can't clean deep scratches, how deep ask a plumber, or not.

[Onetap]

Though you shouldn't use it for soldering. That silicone abrasive strip would clean up most scratches.

Otherwise active solder, Powerflow or similar. Most plumbers use it.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Correction. *You* can't clean deep scratches. Normal tube cleaning methods plus a decent flux will deal with any 'scratch'.

[alan]

A similar system was shown on the American Chopper TV programme recently albeit with pipes 2 inch to 12 inch diameter. The team were going to use it as part of a motor bike but decided against it main because they didn't think the pipe was strong through for their purposes BUT in a "throw away" line the pipe/tool representative said that the joint could fail with vibration.

It was also implied that the copper pipe had to be of the highest quality.

In a domestic environment I assume vibration could heat/cooling cycling in a central heating system, water hammer etc.

[alan]

Where I work, when moving into a new build factory/office they had two push fit joints fail within two years with the release of a lot of water.

After the second failure the company had the maintenance team in for a weekend solely to check all the push fit joints. All plumbing was relatively easily accessible under raised floors and suspended ceilings.

Possibly the failure of a couple of push fit joints in thousands is no different from the failure expected in other methods of jointing.