If it's a two story, multi-bath, or other design that has more than just the bare minimum for fixtures, I say that makes a lot of sense. Nice thing about a manifold system is that you can place all of your shut-offs in one convenient location.
I've heard that story from others. It usually is a missing sealing ring in the fitting or seriously flawed tubing. My personal experience with it has been flawless. Thousands of fittings, valves, etc on dozens of systems. The time saved is priceless, especially when assembling more complex items. Plus the tool works for other systems as long as you already have the gun. They have jaw kits and fittings for copper/stainless (holy criminey those stainless fittings are expensive!!), black iron, and Pex. They have a wet tap system for black iron too, that isn't available in the US yet. The black iron press fittings are pretty impressive. Up to 2", No threading, just cut, de-burr and assemble, no leaks. Maybe some sand paper to smooth off any rust, paint or rough spots. It's a nice system for things that are cost prohibitive to use Victaulic fittings.
Oh yeah, I know all about it, but people are using pex as much as they can for the cost of copper craziness.
My drains in my house are nearly all copper. It's all big stuff too, with a crap load. Lol. I've also thought of removing it, and scrapping it and swapping in PVC. I'll wait until there's a problem.
I doubt you'll find many people that know what it is, let alone someone that can use it. We only use it every couple of years
The lady that had our house built originally also had a bathroom added to the second floor later on...everything ran in copper. I bet I could build a new garage for what that bathroom job would cost now!
The home we sold in 2014 was initially a summer cabin built by plumber, everything including drains and sewer is copper.
Ok, here goes the first stupid question of the day...I have copper supply lines feeding my Master Bath Fixtures (2nd Floor) and I need to relocate some of the lines...Is there a transition piece I can use to switch from copper to PEX?? I need to get rid of this monstrosity:
Pretty sure most HD/Lowe's have copper to Pex transition pieces in various forms. Sweat them on to the copper, the Sharkbite push-to-connect type, and there may be others.
Those shark bite fittings sure work well. They are not cheap, but if you are limited in working room, they'll keep the swear jar empty, which ends up saving you money.
copper pipe now being supplied is 1/2 the thickness wall wise of that sold in 60's and 70's makes for so much fun trying to repair as the 2 are not compatible nor is it compatible with any thing else. Have to find some one with special fitting to adapt it to the current stuff.
I replaced a trunk and branch with all home runs but I didn't see any good reason to have a central panel full of valves to shut off water to each home run line. I was still going to have stop cocks at each fixture so I ran a 1" black PE service to the house, switched to 3/4" pex under the house and into a copper manifold from home depot. It is a big sausage with 3/4" pex stubs on each end and 8 1/2" pex stubs on the side. The outlet of the cold sausage goes to my water heater in 3/4" then after the water heater is another sausage with a 3/4" hot inlet and no outlet except for 8-1/2" pex stubs. Then I just crimped on 1/2" pex to each stop cock at the fixture hot and cold. Of course the flex 3/8" lines to the actual fixture. Your bath tub also doesn't need 3/4". Mine is all plumbed with 1/2". We are living in a time when less water is wasted. The place for big stuff is outside service runs and irrigation! My 3/4" yard hydrant tapped off of the 1" service line really flows well. Oh and pex is much more normal to work with exposed when you use straight sections instead of buying rolls. Rolls kind of suck to work with if you like neat work.
I replaced a trunk and branch with all home runs but I didn't see any good reason to have a central panel full of valves to shut off water to each home run line. I was still going to have stop cocks at each fixture so I ran a 1" black PE service to the house, switched to 3/4" pex under the house and into a copper manifold from home depot. It is a big sausage with 3/4" pex stubs on each end and 8 1/2" pex stubs on the side. The outlet of the cold sausage goes to my water heater in 3/4" then after the water heater is another sausage with a 3/4" hot inlet and no outlet except for 8-1/2" pex stubs. Then I just crimped on 1/2" pex to each stop cock at the fixture hot and cold. Of course the flex 3/8" lines to the actual fixture. Your bath tub also doesn't need 3/4". Mine is all plumbed with 1/2". We are living in a time when less water is wasted. The place for big stuff is outside service runs and irrigation! My 3/4" yard hydrant tapped off of the 1" service line really flows well. Oh and pex is much more normal to work with exposed when you use straight sections instead of buying rolls. Rolls kind of suck to work with if you like neat work.
ABS is about all that is used here in the PNW for waste. We don't see much PVC at all. Nobody plumbs supply with it either. Really, the only place PVC goes is irrigation. Regardless, in my single story home I have no noise issues at all with ABS.
I like the central manifolds near the water heater with short 3/4" supply lines to the manifolds but I do not like plastic manifolds, or cheezy valves at the manifolds for each run. The regular copper manifolds for pex distribution are only like 30$ each. Then you put the regular shut off valves at each fixture so it looks like a regular house. Oh and I do not like switching back to copper for the little stub through the wall. I use the crimp on pex shut off valves and an escutecheon at the wall. Instead of crimping on a silly copper 90 stub I crimp on a brass 90 and a pex stub through the wall. If you like straight looking runs then use straight sticks of pex instead of rolls. I surface mount these if needed. I have never heard of a code requirement to bury all pex in a wall or crawlspace.
