polybutylene pipe

[Tdog]

Without going into a lot of details, some members of our church are trying to help a 'widder woman' who lives alone. Her house is pretty run down. Her washer/dryer is under a covered area, but outside, and down some nasty steps. We are looking into moving the machines onto the enclosed front porch. Running hot/cold water is normally not a problem, but her nearest hot water that we can tap into is polybutylene pipe. The cold water is pvc & no problem. We are hearing horror stories about working with polybutylene.
Do any TBN'ers have experience tapping into polybutylene with pvc?

Thanx,
Jack

 

[EddieWalker]

The problem with poly pipe is you just never know when and where it will fail. It has a terrible reputation as being unreliable, and for rupturing. There is an area where I live that was all done in poly pipe. They now have crews working 24/7 to repair the breaks, since it happens every day. For now, it's cheaper to repair the breaks then to install brand new water lines to all those homes.

Tapping into it is simple enough, and not where you will have problems down the line. That's probably going to become the strongest point in the line. Just be sure to spend the extra on quality materials. Now that it's there, you either live with it and hope for the best, or replace all of it. Most people chose to hope for the best and deal with it when it fails.

Good luck,
Eddie

 

[studor]

I agree with Eddie -- the problem is not joining into it, the problem is the poly pipe itself. I would be tempted to run PEX from the heater to the laundry outlet and be done with it --- JMHO

 

[SPIKER]

there are a couple different types of this poly pipe that some are good others are bad. Not sure which is which. There are 2 Grey colored ones which are the two primary ones and one is the main culprit which gets brittle & pops, the other expands OK and generally is good product. If you look around do a search or two I'm sure you can find the info. I have some in my house and luckily it is the good type. I did some searching (4~5 yrs ago) and got the gist of that and which manufactures markings were on the poor stuff. I dont have that info available anymore or else I would post it, once I figured my stuff was OK I got rid of it.

If you can find the correct type of fittings for the specific pipe that is installed then tapping into the poly is very easy, simply cut with good sharp knife a square edge, and snap in a T fitting and run more poly pipe out to where it needs to go. Look around to see if there is a hunk of poly tubing laying under a porch or floor board to take to hardware/box store to fit to the parts they have. If you cant find one perhaps cut out a small section after a valve someplace where you can shorten the pipe an inch or so and re-install the pipe with the section removed...

Mark

 

[SpringHollow]

You can easily connect with sharkbite fittings. One of the big problems with the polybutylene pipe was many of the fittings failed.

Pex is great stuff.

Ken

 

[Tdog]

Thanks all. Don't quite know yet how it will go. The guy who has the lead worked his way through college as a plumber so I am happy to let him decide what we do. More so after I did a web search.

Jack

 

[Matt_Jr]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't chlorine (city water) the cause of the polybutylene becoming brittle and breaking. If I remember correctly, it was worse near hot water heaters 'cause the heat increased the speed of the chemical reaction that caused the polybutylene to fail. I did some research on the stuff about 10 years ago when I lived in Manassas, 'cause I bought a house with it in there. But I moved from there about 7 years ago, and haven't thought of that stuff since. From what I remember, if you were on a well, the polybutylene would last forever.

 

[Willl]

'widder woman'

A what ?

 

[themichelob]

Nope, chlorine has nothing to do with it. I'm on a well and I've had a failure about once every other year for the last 15 years. I missed the cut-off for the recall by one month, so I've been stuck with this stuff. Just determine what size pipe your dealing with and get the corresponding QWEST fitting to connect to different material. It's pretty easy, and you shouldn't have any problems going forward. Regards, Mike

 

[SpringHollow]

Believe me, nothing is easier than sharkbite fittings to tie into different materials. Cut, deburr if necessary, and push on.

Ken