I plan to replace a good portion of galvanized Pipe with PEX. I've read a few articles on the subject, and it looks fairly straight forward... unscrew the old pipe, put on a threaded plastic connector and attach PEX to it.
How likely is it that my 1965 built house's pipes will break under me trying to unscrew them? If one breaks I'll have to buy a set of dies and rethread the darned thing, and I really don't want to do that.
Also, is this a job a fella can really do himself? Or should I just pay the $2,000 to have a plumber do it?
A lot depends on the condition of the pipe. If you are replacing it all you only really care about the first joint. One tip. At that joint make sure the plastic is the male and the metal a female, perhaps even a brass/bronze connector. If you thread steel into plastic it will split the plastic after a while.
Last month we replaced all the piping in my son's old house with PEX. We went from the water meter to the last hose bib. Required a day to dig a 70 foot trench from the water meter to the house, and another day to run the pipe and fittings. Total cost was under $500, but that was because he had cheap access to the crimp tools (borrowed over the weekend from a plumber friend). He had complete access from under the house, so it was fairly easy. The crimper is going to be your biggest single expense. Suggestions - run 3/4 PEX as much as you can, you will appreciate the flow. Second, if you're going to do it, replace it all at once, the effort involved will keep you from ever wanting to do it again.
My mother-in-law recently asked me to take a look at their leaky kitchen faucet. I figured it would be a simple gasket or valve replacement.
Turns out the faucet spout was corroded and the part was no longer available (or at least too difficult to find locally). It was a wall mount faucet which also turned out to be difficult to find (at a reasonable price). I thought I had gotten lucky when I found a replacement in the back of a bin at the local home center, and rushed back to my in-laws to install it.
Unfortunately, when I went to unscrew the faucet, the pipe in the wall twisted off instead.
So I bought a special tool to try to remove the pipe from the next fitting. No go, it just crumbled until the fitting was destroyed also.
Figured I'd try to remove that fitting and replace, but it busted off inside the wall.
I decided to just replace the vertical pipes running in the wall with new ones to the basement. So, I started removing pipes and fittings. It seemed like every fitting I went to remove cracked or crumbled in my hands. The final 10 foot section of pipe split lengthwise down the entire length! I thought to myself "You've got to be kidding!" :) By the time I was done, there was only 5 feet of the original plumbing left. So, I decided to just replumb the house since the majority of it was already out.
Of course, the old faucet mounted to rigid galvanized pipes, and the new CPVC piping wouldn't support the faucet. And there was no way to install bracing without tearing into the wall. I certainly didn't want to go there after everything that had happened so far. :)
In the end, I decided to replace the kitchen sink with one I could mount a standard deck mount kitchen faucet to.
So, the moral of this story is hope for something simple, but expect the worst. In my case, a leaky faucet turned into a complete replumbing job. My in-laws have a new sink and faucet and much better plumbing now, but it wasn't the project I had been planning for.
If the pipe joints look rusted like they've been dripping water, or you see any signs along the pipes of pinhole drips, expect the pipes to break. :)
Wow, just one day? I re-pipe mine with copper and it took a few days with just one guy. Did you open up the walls to get to the showers, tubs, sink fixtures and hot water heater too?
Not a bad suggestion, but if you can do it, I suggest running all runs as home runs to a manifold in the basement. You can use the smaller ½ inch and since you will not be sharing, it should give good volume and pressure and the hot water will not need to run as long. Any maintenance work will allow you to shut down just one run at a time.
Was way too lucky on that. Deep crawl space under the house made access easy. Pulled the old galvanized out and used the sill plate holes to run the PEX in. Existing access doors for behind the tub, lavatory and commode meant we didn't have to open up a single wall.
Every application will be different, but a manifold may lend itself to ease of routing. We put quarter turn ball valves at every fixture for maintenance work.
Question - in all that talk about using water pipes for grounding, someone mentioned bonding the water heater inlet and outlet pipes together. If you're 100% PEX from the water meter, would that be necessary?
If you're talking of interior plumbing only, not buried, 40 yr galvanized is pretty unlikely to be so bad as to be unworkable unless you have extremely bad water conditions or other reasons for galvanic corrosion. Signs to look out for would be if you're already having random pinhole leaks, etc., frequently. If not, I'd say your chances are quite good.
Of course, if it's that bad, rethreading really isn't likely going to be an option anyway, as there isn't going to be enough left to thread and have a sufficient wall thickness/strength to make a seal when you try to thread on a new fitting.
It's doable. Whether you'll feel it was worth the money will probably depend on how good access you have to what you need to get to and just a general level of comfort w/ doing repair work...if it seems a stretch to consider, chances are you may regret it. OTOH, if it's just not being familiar w/ PEX itself and you do stuff routinely, it's just a new skill to learn...
Yes, with some advance planning, you can do it. If you plan to do small stages, yes, I can pretty much guarantee one fitting will be a problem. If you plan ahead, lay out the manifolds, perhaps run the lines to the fixtures in advance, you will have only once connection to worry about.
You can always rent them: when I replumbed my house more than a decade ago, that's exactly what happened to me. I just ran down to the tool rental place, got a couple dies, threaded the pipe and was on my way. Pretty painless.
If I was going to do all that work, re-pipe the house First I would replace all the pipe, Second I would use Copper not PEX even if Mice & Rats like it. ( and they will chew threw it) It's just the new cheap housing track way to do things. But what do I know I'm just a plumber.
Every material has its place. PEX is a great material in the right place. It has been used in Europe for years. If it was up to union plumbers, we'd still be using cast iron pipe. and all houses would be built from stone.
Fact is it just is not as good as copper you can sugar coated anyway you want. It is cheaper, and faster to install. But now do the contractors pass that savings on ? Now you bash the Unions what dose that have to do with the quality of pipe. But are one of those people that think everybody but you should make minimum wage, have no medical benefits, have no retirement. Even Union wages aren't that much compared to cost of living anymore.
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