>contains traces of lead and other heavy metals
>gives water metallic taste
>overpriced, just look at the cost of those fittings
>too much solder, too little solder, too much heat, not enough heat, not enough flux, too much flux, wrong type of flux...
>did you solder it correctly? lol won't find out for 10 years
>takes 7 MINUTES for each joint
>casually set the wall on fire while trying to make a tight connection
>microcracks, good luck finding the leak
>barely flexible, good luck feeding through joists for any reno work
>if the outside looks like cancer after contact with moisture, imagine what the inside looks like
>literally disintegrates if in contact with the wrong material
>zero innovation for 100 years because it "just werks lol"
you didn't fall for the >>>muh coppa<<< meme did you?
What should I use instead? (I'm actually researching for a small plumbing job I have to figure out)
Stainless steel is unironically the best, but it's the most expensive.
Take the brass pill bro.
How the frick would stainless steel water lines work? Sounds like a lot of welding
Pro-press.
>muh can't solder
>muh slow
Sounds like (you) problem to me.
>microcracks, good luck finding the leak
Metallic pipes don't suffer from that.
>barely flexible, good luck feeding through joists for any reno work
They sell annealed rolls you know
Threaded stainless pipe.
You know, pipes aren't supposed to be frozen. You'd have exactly the same result with aged brittle CPVC or oxidized PEX because your waterworks makes water a bit too spicy.
Other fun fact about copper. It can work with high pressures, like 40 bars. Plastic is only rated 16 bars.
Gtfo copper shill. Of course pipes aren't suppose to freeze, but at least PEX doesn't pop like the pimples on your ass.
While it is new and not brittle - sure. Once it gets brittle, your pipe becomes and ice-maker machine, because it would shit out cylindrical cubes of ice
Stainless is half the price of copper.
You mean lime scale? Biofilm is caused by bacteria.
>Stainless is half the price of copper.
Not really.
Here is a thing. Copper is expensive, but turning it into pipe is relatively cheap, because it is a soft material.
Stainless is cheaper, but... Making anything out of stainless is hard. Seamed tube (which has to be welded/brazed as pro-press won't work that well with it due to the seam) is about the same price of copper in the end. Seamless pipe - lol.
Joining stainless is also tricky. Soldering stainless? Idk maybe it would cause galvanic corrosion, and soldering to stainless is hard. Welding? Copper-sized tubes would be hard to weld as wall thickness is 0.8-1.2 mm, plus it would require you purging a line with argon so pipe doesn't sugar on the inside. Black iron pipe sized stainless pipe? Yes, it can be welded, even with stick, maybe you can get around the sugaring problem with some sort of flux instead of argon... But man it gets expensive.
Thus pro-press, flared and compression fittings are usable.
But then industry invented plastics. All sorts. PolyB, PEX, PVC, CPVC, PP-R, PE-RT, HDPE, LDPE, ABS and we're stuck with them because they don't care about the best. They care about cheap, and we will still hear that this type of communis- plastic pipe would work unlike previous.
Anyway, it is not like stainless tubes and pipes don't exist, it is just rare and is not used for potable water, more like yogurts at factory and weird gasses in the industry
My old house in Philadelphia used threaded steel pipe. It was also built a hundred years ago, so who knows if people still do that today
I also don't think its stainless since you get rust in the water if you haven't used the sink in a few weeks.
stainless will rust if it is contaminated which is easily done just scratching it can cause it
Reads like it is galvanized.
Try PVC or CPVC, its really common here and its a breeze to work with just need a good cutter or hacksaw if u are in a pinch, PVC cleaner and PVC cement all are very cheap and available.
and did I tell u that PVC & CPVC are approved for potable water if properly cleaned b4 installation....
not too bad if u ask me ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Enjoy your estrogen water
unlike the troony that keeps posting the pex troll threads, pvc will unironically leach phthalates into your water.
Lead.
Lead is chemically inert under most circumstances.
Lead is ductile and never work-hardens. There are lead pipes that are centuries old which still hold water.
The Romans were right, take the leadpill.
The problem with lead is water fluoridation. The fluoride leaches the lead out, even from lead-based plumbing solder. I assume there could be other compouns often found in water supplies that might react to some degree, but fluoride is real fricker because of how electronegative it is. It's quite difficult to store in almost anything unless it's already bonded so tight to something else it's nearly impossible to react away without special conditions and catalysts.
The romans used lead pipes in situations where the water was constantly flowing. When water is allowed to sit still in a lead pipe, as we let water sit still in modern plumbing situations, then lead will start accumulating in nontrivial quantities. There are still lead pipes in use today, but they're not a health hazard because of artificial inhibitors blocking the lead. There was a case in Flint, Michigan where they were left out. Though you could argue that the chlorine or other additions were significant in that scope. I'd want to see a scientific paper on the topic.
if you need constant flow that basically discards anything with any kind of valve, which is all the modern plumbing?
Yes.
I heard of them drinking wine out of lead vessels, not sure about fermentation. Either way, the acidic wine is far worse for dissolving lead.
didn't romans also make wine using lead containers specifically for the flavor?
I just had a copper line freeze on me the other week, was a fricking nightmare to clean up
Why dont you heat your house?
You forgot:
>has to be dielectrically separated from your water heater because if you don't it literally becomes a fricking battery and corrodes the living frick out of the fittings.
>can't be run in tight spaces because you can't get your torch in there to solder it
>high scrap value makes it an attractive target for diverse local youth to steal and sell for crack money
>becomes a fricking battery and corrodes the living frick out of the fittings.
you fricking moron it does not become a battery. the dissimilar metals cause a reaction, there is no fricking battery involved you moron
>the dissimilar metals cause a reaction, there is no fricking battery involved you moron
That's a redox reaction between dissimilar metals and that's a battery in the most literal sense.
It's time to go back to middle school science class before you call other people moronic, you fricking moron
>Galvanic corrosion (also called bimetallic corrosion or dissimilar metal corrosion) is an electrochemical process in which one metal corrodes preferentially when it is in electrical contact with another, in the presence of an electrolyte. A similar galvanic reaction is exploited in primary cells to generate a useful electrical voltage to power portable devices.
so...a battery
holy shit that other guy can never show his face here again lmao
>the dissimilar metals cause a reaction
and what exactly is this reaction anon?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galvanic_corrosion
you must be 18 to post here.
third worlders will say anything to justify using carcinogenetic plastics for their water, won't they?
3rd worlders don't get to have water anon
Sufficiently clever ones have water tanks on top of their hovels for solar heated water, water pressure, and water availability. I don't know what they use for piping. Poverty can breed some pretty "clever" solutions.
Look up biofilm. The pipe material isn't exposed to the water for long
pex hate spam got boring huh? now your going to shit on copper? kys homosexual
Just used copper and sharkbite fittings in my shower. Worked perfectly.
>sharkbite
>zero innovation for 100 years because it "just werks lol"
Mutt moron homosexual Black person
This technology is about 50 years old, only new thing is the tool.
I just bought a house with copper plumbing and a reverse osmosis system. Am I gonna make it bros?
I fell for the muh copper meme. Please everyone else here use PEX, eat the bugs and be happy. I wouldn't want to share such a precious metal with estrogen homosexuals.
COPPER BAD
PEX BAD
LEAD BAD
GALVANIZED BAD
BADBABDBABDABBABDABDBAB!
There's always stainless and packing the threads with greased twine.
Enjoy your chromium poisoning.
If you have extra time, Rothenberger and Virax both make pope expanders and T-Extractors that eliminate the need for many fittings.
The T-extractors require brazing rather than soldering, but the expanders don’t.
The amount of time required makes the system too costly for a regular plumber in most cases, but the systems are supposedly used in some schools since it eliminates the extra cost of fittings.
An expanded joint, and T-extracted joint also use less solder or brazing rod, since there is only one “side” that needs to be soldered when joining pipe inline with the expander, and only one joint that needs to be brazed with the T-extractor.
For soldering, there is a special soldering iron for plumbing fittings called the Antex Pipemaster Pro, which helps lower the fire risk from torches.
Most plumbing solder nowadays os completely lead free.
For mire reliable soldering, use a power pope cleaning brush connected to a drill, and a tinning flux.
>Rothenberger and Virax both make pope expanders
and here i thought i was the only one who wanted to see francis getting dilated
>If you have extra time, Rothenberger and Virax both make pope expanders and T-Extractors that eliminate the need for many fittings.
>The T-extractors require brazing rather than soldering, but the expanders don’t.
>Antex Pipemaster Pro
that sounds like a good system for someone that have time and lives away from supplies.
I think it is weird i have never seen such thing where i live, it is not that more expensive
>that sounds like a good system for someone that have time and lives away from supplies.
>I think it is weird i have never seen such thing where i live, it is not that more expensive
The Rothenberger stuff has been sold in the USA for decades (it was mentioned in the ‘Whole Earth Catalog’ from the late 1970s into the 1970s, and Rothenberger purchased one or more older US tool brands, but Rothenberger is sort of a weird specialty pro plumbing brand that a lot of professional plumbers are even unfamiliar with.
The tools are also obscure, and come with crap directions, so you really need a German plumbing manual, or personal training to fully understand how to use the tools.
Virax is basically the Ridgid of France, and has been sold in the USA, but is also a somewhat obscure brand with limited distribution.
The tools don’t really save time, unless you suddenly find yourself without a fitting away from a parts house, but they do save money if you have the extra time.
the only thing i trust for potable water is glass.
I would trust pyrex and ceramics as well, although it gets to be difficult to work that sort of thing into a high pressure system with sufficient practicality. Best effort with enpoint filtration is probably about as much as I think it's worth worrying too hard about it all.
Fun fact: you can drill holes in glass (even something as thin as a light bulb) by using a drill bit rated for metal and dribbling water on it for a lubricant. Huh. Don't know what you'd do with that since you'd still need some kind of bushings for it, and otherwise maybe you'd be a glass blower. At least with copper piiping, it's actually a bit ductile and won't necessarily immediately burst upon freezing, especially the older thicker stuff. But if it does freeze then you should have a look around to see if it has any bulbous areas where the wall was weak enough to give more than the rest of the pipe. Repeated freezing will eventually find a failure point. Glass is not very elastic and would just shatter.
PPR is objectively the best. But this is for more advanced societies like in Europe. I wouldn't expect a burger to even know what PPR is, you primitives are still shilling lead lmao
PPR is quite a shitty system. I'd rather have PVC or PEX.
Let me elaborate why
>Labor.
It is extremely labor intensive, comparable to galvanized pipe really. Really hard to use it in tight spot because "welder" is a big hot thing.
>Material itself, technology
PP-R is inert and durable. But. You're heating it up before welding, which degrades it. I've seen some fricked up jobs where morons set iron to 900C and it degrades plastic and often creates a restriction. Worst part is that you can't tell if joint was done properly or not. And if it wasn't, fitting becomes brittle and it will crack if there is any movement. And in PP-R there is frickton of movement as thermal expansion rate of this pipe is quite insane. Even ones with fiberglass inside or aluminium shell on the outside.
When it comes to being dumb proof, PEX is pretty good. PVC is kinda OK. Even copper is surprisingly pretty moron proof compared to PPR.
So yes. I think PP-R isnt the pipe of choice for water. More like for a chemical plant, processing, idk, acids.
Even if you replaced the pipes in your home with a material that you deem safe, the external source pipes would still be out of your control.
just blow glass custom tubing
get to see the water go WOOSH when there's air bubbles
need a PrepHole infograph of every type of pipes pros and cons under a microscope
that would be really good
I literally have a t joint like this that is sweating. It's been fixed a few times by the looks of it. What a good fix? So far this thread makes me think everything is going to put cancer in the water