This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 3,624 for Thursday the 23rd of June 2022.
Today's show is entitled.
Everything you always wanted to know about PX parts 3 and 4.
It is hosted by Tre and is about 14 minutes long.
It carries a clean flag, the summary is, discusses plumbing code and installation.
Welcome back to the series, everything you always wanted to know about PX.
This is part 3, PX and the city ordinances.
How to make certain your installation meets code.
This will be a short episode and I will likely append part 4 following this, but this
is important.
Since we have people from around the world who listen to Hacker Public Radio, I cannot
begin to speculate what your local building codes allow or prohibit.
In the majority of states within the United States of America, a property owner can perform
plumbing maintenance on their own residents.
Otherwise you need to be a licensed plumber.
That may not be true for all states and there can be inspections required and sometimes
even finds for code violations.
Rules also vary where PX can be installed, how frequently it must be supported, whether
the work must be inspected or whether it requires a permit.
The point of this section is to remind you to do your research to find out what the rules
in your specific region are and then be sure to follow them.
And in doubt, consult a licensed plumber in your area.
Everything you always wanted to know about PX, part 4, PX lies and silicone tape, my installation
experience.
If you have missed the previous episodes in this series, I encourage you to review them
before continuing because they will provide valuable context around which my plumbing
adventures are explained.
So anytime you start a home improvement project, the best place to start is with the design,
the vision for what you want, that way you can best plan and anticipate the needs and
anticipate the positives, the negatives and figure out what option is going to best suit you.
In my case, I had two primary options.
Option 1 was to follow all of the existing copper pipe and simply replace it with PX.
So when it came to an elbow, put in an elbow, when it came to a T, put in a T, when
it went to the hot water heater, you know, take the main line, go to the hot water heater,
all the different things, just follow the existing pipe.
That was indeed an option.
Option 2 was to install a manifold valve system and redesign everything from scratch, sending
the main feed line to the manifold, handing it in a teaf come off from the cold water going
to the water, hot water tank, and then the hot water come back off of that to the hot
side of the manifold, have individual valves for various different parts of my house,
so I had much more flexibility on what I wanted to do.
I ended up choosing the manifold valve system.
The other thing that had to be considered was whether I was going to be replacing everything
or connecting to some existing pipe or fixtures.
As you know, if you've listened to previous episodes, much of my copper pipe was in pretty
bad shape, but when it came closer to the appliances and the sections of pipe that
were used less, those pieces of pipe were in better shape.
And pecks coming through the walls, then involves you cutting out sections of the walls,
replacing those valves, a lot of individual challenges there, and you have the option
to do that.
My choice when I was doing the design was to get as close as I could to those and then cut
the copper before it came through the floor up into the living part of the residence and
solder on a adapter that would go from the pecks type B that I was using to the copper
and that ended up working out best for me.
The next thing you have to consider is your materials.
Again, pecks A versus pecks B, and we talked about that in part 3 and the pros and
the cons of each of those, you have to make the decisions for yourself.
In my case, pecks B1, mainly because I could get more parts more easily at my local
home improvement store with pecks B.
So if it's, you know, in the middle of the night or it's on a weekend and something
goes wrong and I have to do a quick fix, I know I can run to my home improvement store
and find a part there to help with quick fix as opposed to waiting until normal business
hours to go to a plumbing store.
So that was really the main deciding factor for me on pecks B was the availability of
connectors.
The other materials that I had to think about were manifolds, manifolds are sections
of valves that you can use for turning on or off specific parts of your plumbing.
I'm going to include a link in the show notes for some of the options for pecks manifolds.
But really, you can almost think of these like the breaker box that you have for your electricity
where you can turn on or off certain specific sections of the house.
Now they don't automatically turn off like a breaker would if you have a problem.
But they do give you the flexibility that if you're wanting to work on the toilet in one
of the bathrooms and the valve is broken, you have to actually replace the valve stems.
So you can't just turn off the valve of the toilet.
Now you can turn off the valve on the manifold and shut off the water possibly to that toilet
possibly to that entire bathroom depending on how you have it configured but still not
have to turn off all the water in the house for something like that.
So I will include the link in the show notes for some ideas on some manifolds and you
get to choose which ones you want to use depending on how many different zones you want
to have, how much flexibility you want to have, what materials you want it made of, what
colors you want it to be all sorts of things.
So there's a wide variety of manifolds that are available.
And then your connectors you have to decide are you going to use new valves.
I put in several additional shut-off valves for different things so I could shut off the
water coming to the manifold, right above the manifold, I could shut off the water going
to the water heater, right above the manifold, having a lot of things there in specific
areas.
What type of transition connectors are you going to need?
Are you going to be transitioning to copper like I was, are you going to do that with
solder on connectors you're going to try to do that with shark bike connectors?
Now I'm going to pause here and talk a little bit about shark bike connectors because
I really think they're ingenious and I've played with them a little bit.
I chose to go with solder connectors for my particular situation primarily because the
installer that put in my copper pipe did a really bad job, he oftentimes would use a hammer
just because I guess or to get the pipe to go in the direction that he wanted it to go.
So my pipe was not always round and it was not always free of corrosion on the outside.
So I had difficulty with shark bike connectors when the pipe was not completely round,
getting them on at all.
So I finally decided that a solder on connector was going to be best for me connecting
to copper and I had a whole process that I did with that.
I ended up getting a special brush for cleaning the pipe that I could mount on a cordless drill.
So I could quickly and easily cut the existing copper pipe, clean the outside and
deeper it really, really well and deeper the inside of the copper pipe really well as
well.
We talked about why that's important in part one and then be able to also get a similar
brush for cleaning the inside of the copper fitting to go onto the pipe, clean it really
good, flux them both not over flux but sufficient flux to get the solder to install and
get the fitting on there and get it soldered well and then proceed to connect the packs.
So that was what I ended up choosing.
You may have PVC in your house that you're connecting to from packs.
You can also do that with a shark bite tool or you can get PVC or shark bite connector
or you can get PVC to pecks fittings that simply glue onto the PVC.
It's much easier to go from PVC to or from pecks to PVC than it is to go from pecks to
copper but both are are doable.
You also have to consider how you're going to start, are you going to start at your
main water line?
How are you going to connect to your main water line?
In my case I decided that I was going to connect right where the water came in, the water
came in to a main shutoff valve then it went to a pressure regulator and then from there
there was a three-quarter inch threaded in copper connector.
So I cut just a couple inches above that threaded in connector and I spent a good couple
hours trying to get that connector off my plan had been to unthread that three-quarter
inch connector thread in a new connector that would allow me to crimp, pecks right to it
and go from there.
That did not work.
I was not able to get that connector out of the pressure regulator.
I was afraid I was going to do real damage.
I finally decided in the end that it was going to be best for me to simply solder onto
that section of pipe as well so I put a solder connection on there as well.
One of the other things you may also consider if you're replacing copper is how you're
going to cut it so and we'll get to that in the tools section.
The next thing you have to consider is how are you going to connect to your water heater?
Do you want to redesign that to work with a manifold or you're going to follow existing
pipe?
I ended up going to the manifold and had to make some changes accordingly in my design
but now it's much much more flexible than I like it quite a bit.
Next you have to consider how you're going to hang it.
How are you going to suspend the pecks?
What are you going to fasten it to? As it goes up and down walls, as it goes across
distances, you have to support it periodically and codes vary from location to location
on how that must be supported.
Make sure that you follow your codes but figure out what materials you need to hang it.
In my case, I followed a lot of the same copper pipe and used the copper pipe to hang
the pecks so I was able to zip tie it sometimes to the copper pipe.
Other times put in anchor, stagger it to joists or to walls and finally you'll need
crimp rings especially if you're using pecks B like I did.
You'll need metal crimp rings on that if you're using pecks A you need the expansion
rings but make sure you buy enough rings to do what you need.
After materials you need tools, you'll need the crimp tool or you'll need the expansion
tool depending on if you're using pecks A or pecks B.
I ended up getting an electric crimp tool, cordless crimp tool, battery powered to be able
to get into some of the tight areas and it worked really, really well for me.
You also may want to get a removal tool that helps you to replace a connector if you
messed it up or something's not right and you have to take it off and redo it.
You may choose that you're going to use shark bite fittings for some of these things.
Make sure you have a depth gauge for the shark bite connector so you know where to mark
on the pecks so you know how far to push on the shark bite connector to know that it's
fully on.
Make sure that you can measure the same thing on copper to know that it's put on all the
way.
There's also a special shark bite removal tool if you choose to use shark bite fittings.
Make sure you have a tape measure.
Measure twice, measure three times, measure 15 times, then cut so that you don't end up
wasting a lot of materials.
Having a tape measure handy is very helpful.
Having some heavy duty, mason string, mason's line or a wire fish can be helpful in
getting pecks into specific areas or through walls when you need to.
I found that was very, very helpful for me.
Then of course is planning.
Planning is different than design, planning is really your most important step.
Planning is where you take that design and you translate it into what's actually going
to happen with proper planning, you can reduce your service outage.
In my case, I was able to shut off the water and get the manifold put in and then start
to turn on specific areas of the house and get water to things like a bathroom pretty quickly
so that it was much less of an inconvenience to my family.
Some steps can be done before you shut off the water.
In my case, I was able to pull most of the pecks throughout the house before I ever
came to the point of shutting down the water.
I was able to cut access holes, run, run pecks, make certain connections, get the manifold
mounted, all things like that before I ever shut off the water to again minimize the impact
on the family.
So, planning is critical.
And then assistance.
While an individual install can redo a house with pecks, it's not ideal.
If you can get another person to help you, it will make the process go much easier.
And that will lead us to part five, which will be recorded later.
That talks about installing as a single installer is an individual installer in the
challenges that you'll have there.
Thank you for suffering through my recounting of my adventures with pecks.
And I hope that you've enjoyed this and will tune into future episodes.
Bye now.
On this otherwise stages, today's show is released on our Creative Commons, Attribution
for going to our International License.