131–140 of 163 posts
The only problem with PVC pipe is, it's brittle. And over time, it gets more brittle.
An awful lot of things I see people doing with PVC pipe, and it's not very good at it, would be much better done with wood, which nature already understands how to process when you're done with it.
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We build most houses to last for centuries when properly maintained. We also know from experience that few houses go more than 50 years without a major remodel so we don't overbuild making that impossible.
> We also know from experience that few houses go more than 50 years without a major remodel Well obviously, if we don't build houses to last longer than a few decades. You're describing a symptom not a reason.
My house is typical for a house its age. I have no idea what people will want from a house in 2073, but it will be at least somewhat different from today. Some of that will be style of course, but some will be real functional differences.
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This seems like borderline paranoia. Water travels potentially dozens of miles from the place where it is cleaned and treated with chlorine to kill bugs. The vast majority of that in non-copper pipes. The last few feet inside your house seems unlikely to change anything.
Yes but the dozens of miles is moving water whereas the last few feet in you house is stale water.
Heated water is kept in a different reservoir and the piping uses heat resistant PVC.
In Brazil, most times the water has a smell of chlorine so I guess the chances of it having deadly/lethal microbia there are next to null?
Drank water from the tap (where plumbing is done properly) for all my life, never had any problems so far.
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If only Uponor would flesh out their fitting portfolio for 3/8”. 3/8” PEX is a near-perfect material for hot water distribution to sinks and showers — jurisdictions seem to have settled on the 0-2gpm range for sinks and showers, and 3/8” PEX high velocity at moderate pressure loss at these flows, which is exactly what you want. [0] But Uponor has very limited 3/8” parts, and using their brass fittings in that small s…
Both PEX-A and PEX-B require a separate tools (segment of the tool, or swappable tool head) to perform the pipe to fitting connection. In most cases, it’s easier to just upsize the pipe and have your final termination point be the size you need. I’d rather have very cheap 1/2 inch available than have slightly more expensive 1/2 and 3/8 inch. If needed anything that required the 3/8 in, I would just use copper because…
For domestic hot water, for the connection from whatever part of the system stays hot (the header, the recirc loop, etc) to the fixture, the amount of time and wasted water needed to get hot water to the fixture is directly proportional to the volume of the interior of the pipe, and for a fixed length of pipe, it’s inversely proportional to velocity. So you want the narrowest pipe you can get away with. 3/8” PEX has about half the interior cross-sectional area as 1/2”. This means you get hot water about twice as fast. 3/8” PEX loses about 26 psi/100 ft at 2 gpm and much less at lower flow. If you have 40 psi water and you have a short-ish pipe, that’s usually fine. Or if you have higher pressure and a longer pipe, you’re still fine.
The issue here has that, while the 3/8” PEX is near-perfect for this application, the rest of the system is not amazing. Your sink is likely (sigh) “3/8 female compression”, aka non-standard 9/16 UNEF or so, but the flow rate is well under 2 gpm, so this isn’t a big deal - use whatever adapter you like.
But your shower likely has 1/2” NPT brass female threads. To get the benefit of 3/8” PEX, you need to adapt it at the shower.
> If needed anything that required the 3/8 in, I would just use copper because it’s likely a very small and isolated case.
No, don’t do that. From the horse’s mouth (this particular horse very much wanting you to use copper):
https://copper.org/applications/plumbing/cth/design-installa...
> [Copper Pipe] Water Velocity Limitations
> To avoid excessive system noise and the possibility of erosion-corrosion, the designer should not exceed flow velocities of 8 feet per second for cold water and 5 feet per second in hot water up to approximately 140°F. In systems where water temperatures routinely exceed 140°F, lower flow velocities such as 2 to 3 feet per second should not be exceeded. In addition, where 1/2-inch and smaller tube sizes are used, to guard against localized high velocity turbulence due to possibly faulty workmanship (e.g. burrs at tube ends which were not properly reamed/deburred) or unusually numerous, abrupt changes in flow direction, lower velocities should be considered. Locally aggressive water conditions can combine with these two considerations to cause erosion-corrosion if system velocities are too high.
A 2.2 gpm shower head fed by 3/8” copper is out of spec.
I have personally seen copper tube fail when used with plain water at excessive velocity. It’s not pretty. Fortunately it was outdoors. Don’t do this inside your walls. Most vendors seem to think 8 ft/sec in PEX at 140F is fine, though.
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"it can last for decades" Just my personal opinion, that's the problem with US housing. We build stuff to last 20-30 years(if properly installed) , instead of 100s of years.
I'm OK with multi-decade life for certain things like roofs or fences or siding. But not for plumbing. What happens, one day the pipe just bursts and destroys the house?
Floods generally will not destory a house structure but it will destory the drywall, carpet, and the like so the cleanup is expensive.
Making cool stuff out of cheap materials is great, but as I understand it, PVC itself is nasty stuff (even compared with other plastics) that we should probably be avoiding if we can. I'm not sure what would work as a good general-purpose replacement for PVC for making things out of though. I'm not sure if ABS is available in the narrow diameters that PVC is. Pex is more bendy. Bamboo is strong, but not uniform. Wood…
Is that true for PEX too? If so what's the alternative for piping?
Folks on YouTube cut, heat, and flatten PVC and then scratch build scale models out of it. This working excavator is rather extraordinary. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qam0DmWq_No&pp=ygUTcHZjIHBpcGU...
I started watching this and couldn't stop. It is ridiculously impressive. I would guess he would have used some CAD tool to design this excavator? It had to have been very carefully thought out to ensure proper access to put the pieces together and take them back apart all along the way. Does he say in other videos what he uses?
What a mad man
Folks on YouTube cut, heat, and flatten PVC and then scratch build scale models out of it. This working excavator is rather extraordinary. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qam0DmWq_No&pp=ygUTcHZjIHBpcGU...
I've only gotten to the part where he makes the gear... despite having a few jigs, I can't get over how much he's doing by hand and by eye with sufficient precision. The teeth were hand drawn and match up with the spacing of the tracks made earlier. Very impressive work.
this is fucking amazing. stencil a photo from a screen and trace it on to an object.
i am generally hateful towards 5 minute crafts but this is serious engineering.