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Posted by Oren on March 5, 2007, 12:33 pm
On Sun, 4 Mar 2007 22:04:31 -0800, "Eigenvector"
>I finally bit the bullet and did it. I replaced all my hot water lines with
>PEX. This is one of those jobs I'd been pussyfooting around with. But
>today for some reason I finally got the gumption up to do the entire job the
>proper way.
>
>What a colossal pain in the ass that was. It wasn't the PEX that was a
>pain, it was getting rid of the galvanized that was the pain. Crouched down
>in the crawlspace with the spiders whacking away at the foundation for 2
>hours to open up the concrete just enough to get rid of a single 1/2" elbow
>that was buried in a 6" beam on top of the foundation. I don't fear spiders
>any more after that ordeal. The rest of the hour was spent pulling 3/4" PEX
>line through that hole in the foundation and hoping the PEX wouldn't snag on
>a nail or sharp rock. I ripped the hell out of the sheetrock in the garage
>stringing the PEX up to the water heater - no biggie I'm replacing it all
>anyway. I turned on the juice and voila - I forgot to crimp the 3/4" inlet
>into my manifold. The amount of water was dramatic - especially since my
>water is about 30 psi, maybe more. So after crimping that I tried again and
>this time no problems so far. I have 2 lines that I suspect need to be
>corrected, but I'll have to get to them later - the crimp ring is a little
>too far away from the fitting for my comfort.
>
>The difference in water pressure is astonishing - I can actually take a
>shower without cranking up the hot water tap all the way. I might even be
>able to turn down the water temp on the heater - right now its at 160 F to
>compensate for the lack of pressure I was getting.
>
>I tell you one thing, I had the 3/4" line suspended from J hangers in the
>crawlspace to keep it relatively supported, after turning on the water the
>PEX line sagged and expanded dramatically. It almost makes me wonder if I
>should go back in and use something other than J hangers.
My system (Vanguard recommends) 7 inches of slack every 50 foot.
Horizontally supported every 32 inches.....using tubing clamps of the
proper size.
You mentioned a crawl space. The PEX needs to be protected from
freezing.
>I ought to upload some photos of this, assuming it holds I'm pretty proud of
>this job.
>
--
Oren
"Well, it doesn't happen all the time, but when it happens, it happens
constantly."
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