What world are you in? The grab ring disintegrating is more common that what you think. Plastic pipes with brass compression joints is the best jointing for plastic pipes. The only proviso is that there must be enough slack in the plastic to cope for expansion as the expansion may pull the pipe out of the joints and olive.
To come out wit that comment I question your experience in plastics.
So can brass compression.
Just old fashioned I am sorry to say.
My brother who has been a house designer/site manager has used/specified plastic since the 80's. Mainly due to cost and speed of installation.
He checked my houses plumbing when bought in 2000 and follows standard industry practice and mixing plastic (Osmagold) and copper as necessary.
Basically
- Boiler circuit pipes and pipes from hot tank to loft are all copper. This is as if the boiler faults and starts boiling water the copper can cope, whereas plastic is not usually rated above 95°C (?).
- All cold water pipes are plastic (except near the hot supplies in airing cupboard and loft, for reason above).
- All pipes leaving the airing cupboard, hot water and central heating change to plastic before going through the floor.
- Pipes visible where they might be physically knocked ie radiator tails, tap supplies, cistern supplies are copper. Paint also adheres to copper better than plastic.
- Barrier plastic pipe has been used. Early plastic pipe installation (in
90's) suffered from severe corrosion in the CH circuit, despite use of inhibiter. Caused by oxygen diffusing through the plastic. Cured by use of barrier pipe. In fact it is getting hard to not buy barrier pipe nowadays, the Osma non-barrier stuff is special order only. All plastic piping I have fitted for the last 10 years odd had been barrier pipe.Ian
True you do need more fittings for copper and that will push up the cost, but six is as good as seven in this case.
1) Pikeys cannot pinch it and weigh it in. 2) You can get the plastic pipe into places you cannot get copper pipe.
As for cost, plastic is only cheaper due to the labour charges saved when you pay someone to fit it for you. Plastic fittings are still too expensive to make it a cheaper option for a DIYer who pays no labour charges and is capable of doing a solder joint.
One big disadvantage of plastic fittings are their size. They are bloodly ugly if on view and you also need a deeper notch on the joists to fit them under floorboards.
Adam
Screwfix prices
30m 15mm Copper pipe £56.9730m 15mm JG Barrier pipe £21.99
That is about 2.6 to 1 in cost
But it is £9.97 for a 10 pack of 15mm JC elbows and only £3.60 for 10 copper elbows. That is a 2.77 to 1 cost ratio.
On a CH system you usually need more connectors than metres of pipework.
Adam
Is there any good reason why (blue) MDPE can't be used for indoor cold water services, apart from appearance? It's even cheaper, more flexible and seems to work well out of sight.
I see you are still confusing expansion with contraction. Expansion cannot cause the problem you quote, just an unsightly if visible sagging of the pipe which actually reduces tension. For an joint made at ambient there will not be enough contraction to cause the problem you describe.
That's because you haven't done one in plastic.. one connector at each end of two pipes to each rad, little more.
Not actually what I meant. You can by several end feed copper fittings for the price of one push fit.
I'd say if they have access to your house the copper may not be the first thing to worry about.
I have no pipes showing anywhere here - apart from obviously tails - so I'd say that isn't a real benefit.
I haven't bought any copper tube recently but I'd guess the differential has increased. Cable I bought cost twice as much as I remembered.
Indeed. They rarely look as good as carefully bent copper either where this is on show. Nor do they help support flimsy sinks etc where they go to the taps like copper can.
Think single pipe systems are out of fashion these days...
With a comment like that, it shows who has not installed a full CH system, plastic or otherwise.
Adam
Current recommendation - may even be a regulation - is that plastic pipes buried in chases should/must have a metallic tracer tape laid over them so they can be picked up by metal detectors.
With only one connector at each end of the two pipes to each rad that's what it suggests.
Want a bet?
Where did I mention single pipe?
Strange in that I have seen a few pull slightly out of the fitting and off the olive. As I say make sure there is enough slack. Don't put plastic where it is on show anyhow. Always out of sight so slack can be accommodated. You must stop making things up.
Yep.
It can't be used when exposed to light. Use the black version which can be.
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