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Episode: 3634
Title: HPR3634: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About PEX Part 05 - PEX and the Single Installer
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr3634/hpr3634.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-25 02:34:46
---
This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 3,634 for Thursday the 7th of July 2022.
Today's show is entitled, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About PX Part PX and
the Single Installer.
It is hosted by Trey, and is about 28 minutes long, it carries a clean flag.
The summary is My PX Installation Experience Part 2.
Hello and welcome to Everything You Always Wanted to Know About PX, Part 5, PX and the Single
Installer.
This is the second part of my installation experience.
What I've learned from my plumbing project and working with PX, now if you're wondering
what in the world is he talking about?
What is PX?
You need to go back and listen to the previous episodes.
So what have I learned?
Well first comes to the actual pulling of the PX itself, you know, getting it guided
to where you want it to be.
This can be much like pulling thick wire.
You can go through walls, you can go over top of ceilings, other things like that.
Much more easily than you can with solid rigid sections of pipe, whether they be pop
copper or PVC or, you know, fill in the blank there.
So there are a lot of different ways that you can guide that through.
My method, I often would use a fish tape that you would use for pulling wire to pull
through a bit of mason's line.
And again, this is because I was working on the project myself.
Most of the things that I was doing I was doing myself without assistance.
So I would use a fish tape to pull through some heavy duty mason's line.
You can get that at any home improvement store.
Then I would tie the mason's line to the section of PX that I wanted to pull through.
And I would tie it about four inches from the end.
Tie it as tight as I could.
Then I would take electrical tape and I would wrap it above and below that section.
Then I would tie it again closer to the end of the PX and then I would wrap the whole
thing again with electrical tape.
So you have the strength of the tape, the strength of the knots pulling against the tape.
And then I would use the mason's line to be able to pull that through.
Now again, if you're doing this by yourself, it can be challenging.
You may have to go back to where the PX is and feed some more through then go back to
the end where you're pulling it and pull some until you can't pull anymore and then have
to tie that off and go back to where the PX is and feed more in.
That's part of why I used the mason's line because I could tie it off somewhere and
keep a little bit of pressure on it.
Make sure you pull a little bit extra.
PX is not that expensive.
So if you're pulling a section and you think you're going to need a foot to connect to
that connector once it gets through the hole, pull two feet, pull three feet.
It's not that expensive.
You can use the extra pieces for all sorts of things.
In fact, a little bit of a bonus.
One of the things that I like to do is that those little two, three, four inch sections
of PX that are cut off for various different things.
It's easy to put a screw through those and fasten them to your bench or fasten them to
shelf or something.
Now you have a thing that you can put a pencil in.
You can store a pencil or a screwdriver or what have you.
I've adapted some of my Benchtop tool racks to be able to use some small sections of
PX to be able to hold tiny screwdrivers and other things like that.
So there's lots of things you can do with the extra.
Pull some extra through.
It's better to do that and have it and not need it than need it and not have it.
Also the other thing I learned about pulling it, unroll enough PX for you to do what you're
going to be doing in the next little bit and let it lay straight for 24 hours.
If you've got room in your house or wherever you're working, let it lay straight for 24
hours so that the curve memory that it has developed from being rolled up goes away.
Now if you're working with straighter sections of PX, you know, a 10 foot section or what
have you that you buy at your home improvement store instead of a roll, this may not be
a problem.
But lay it out for a little while so it can straighten out.
That way you don't have curves that are fighting you as you're trying to pull it through.
Next comes supporting the PX.
Now like I mentioned, you can pull it over top of ceilings and other things like that.
But it is important that the PX be supported.
The plumbing codes are different in all different places, but make sure you know what your
plumbing codes are.
For most of the United States, what I've seen is a requirement for on a horizontal section
of 1 inch PX or smaller, it to be supported every 32 inches at least.
Now this can be done with a variety of different things.
I followed a lot of the copper pipe that I had in my house.
I was able to zip tie it right to the old sections of copper pipe and have it supported
very frequently.
You can get hangers that will nail into a joist or nail into a wall or screw into a wall
of things like that to support it.
So that's for horizontal support.
Now when the pipe is running vertically, it must be supported at every floor, so at the
floor and at the ceiling, and then midway between floors as well.
Roughly every four to six feet depending on how big your stories are.
I'm including a link for some references to some of the codes that I referenced while
I was working on that.
You'll be able to find that in the show notes.
It can be challenging to hold the PX in place while you're more permanently securing it.
So zip ties are your friend.
You can often zip tie it to places or use string and tie it in place until you can properly
anchor it.
So supporting the PX is important.
Remember, it's fairly lightweight, but it's going to be heavier when it has water in
it.
Next, we want to talk a little bit about using a manifold.
We discussed manifolds in a previous episode, and manifolds are a way of almost having
like a breaker box for your water.
Now it's not going to automatically turn off the water if there's a problem, but it does
let you manually turn on or off water to specific sections of your home based on what you
need.
So again, if you have a toilet tank explode, and there's water going all over the place
and you grab the valve at the bottom and you try to turn it off and the valve breaks
off in your hand, you can go down and turn off the section of the manifold that controls
that particular section of the house as opposed to having to turn off the entire house.
Now that may seem like an absurd thing.
It does happen, but that's just one example to give you a visual of it.
So you can use a manifold to be able to control water in certain sections of the house.
The thing I liked most about the manifold was by putting that in, I was able to quickly
get water to the areas that I needed the most very quickly while I was still working on
the rest of the project.
So for example, once it got to the point where I'd pulled all the pecs and I'd finally
cut the water line and was connecting the main line, you know, I already had that already
connected to my manifold and that was ready to go.
So I was able to do a lot of the things before I actually cut into the water main, shut
off the water first, then cut into the water main and connected from there.
But then I could work on connecting one bathroom and get that put in and get the valve for
that from the manifold turned on so that I could get water in one bathroom so that, you
know, family in the house could use the bathroom and then I could work on getting water to,
you know, one sink so that people could wash their hands and stuff.
I could work on getting water to the kitchen, you know, what have you get things done in
the order that we needed based on priority so that the inconvenience of me working on all
this by myself was limited for the rest of the family.
So you really need to determine what your needs are when you're using a manifold.
For instance, keep in mind how many hot water and cold water outputs you're going to need.
Most manifolds have a hot water side and a cold water side and you can determine what
you're going to need where most places will require more cold water outputs than they
will require hot water outputs simply because you might have outside taps that only require
cold water.
Also figure out what type of valve type you need.
Do you need to handle valve that you can just walk up to the manifold and turn it off?
Or do you want something that's going to require a key or a wrench so that it can't be turned
off by somebody who's wanting to play a practical joke?
Of course, then if there's an emergency, make sure that you can find that tool that's
required to turn off the particular section of the manifold.
So there's pros and cons all of those, determine what your needs are and pick what works best
for your needs.
Also find a location that's going to work with your manifold.
Make sure you have easy access to it.
Make sure it's fairly central so you can avoid long delays for hot water.
And we'll talk about that here in just a second because that's actually, let's talk about
it now.
That can be one of the interesting concerns when you're putting in a manifold.
When you have a normal plumbing setup and you have water coming off of the hot water tank
that's going to different places, it may go to a sink and then there may be a tea there
and it may continue on to a different sink and then it may continue on to a shower and
then it may continue on to a kitchen and then it may continue on to another shower and
you may have all these things in a row.
The things that are being used are keeping hot water in sections of that pipe.
So when you turn on the thing that's the furthest away, sometimes if other areas are being
used, you've used it in a sink or you've used it somewhere else, you're not going to
have to wait as long for the hot water to get all the way there because other things
that are regularly used in the home can keep certain sections of that filled with hot
water.
When you have a manifold, any particular section is going to have to go from the manifold
all the way to where that is.
So like in my case, the kitchen is the furthest run there and it can take a little bit of
while for the hot water to get from the manifold all the way to the kitchen sink.
So just be aware that you may be changing some of those lengths and your time that you
may have to wait for hot water could increase or decrease and position your manifold accordingly.
So make sure that your manifold is positioned somewhere where it's going to have limited
or no light exposure.
We talked about light exposure in a previous episode and the fact that ultraviolet light
can and will degrade your pecs.
Sunlight is the biggest danger, but you'll also get ultraviolet from LED lights and from
fluorescent lights.
These will not degrade the pecs as rapidly as sunlight will, but they will degrade it.
So make sure that you keep it in a location where it can be protected from light or cover
all of those pecs sections with something that will keep them from being exposed to the
light.
Now, I will tell you that when I installed mine, I was not thinking about the ultraviolet
light that would come off from the LED lights in that part of my garage when I was installing
it.
I realized afterwards as I was working on this particular presentation that I needed to
fix that.
So now I'm having to cover all of those sections of pipe.
They're really pretty.
I have blue pecs for the cold water side and red pecs for the hot water side and it's all
bundled neatly and everything.
Now I have to go back and cover those and I'm using foam insulation to cover them just
because it's easy.
You can get foam pipe sleeves that have a slit down the side.
You slide them over there and they just they magically work.
But I'm having to cover all of those to protect them from the LED lights because I have some
fairly bright LED lights in there to make my working area easier to do.
So when you're figuring out where you want to position your manifold, make sure that you
have limited light exposure or that you cover the pecs after you've installed it to limit
the light exposure.
Then you need to think, am I going to build a manifold or am I going to buy a manifold?
There are a lot of manifold products out there that you can purchase.
You can just Google for them at your local home improvement store.
But with the cost of some of the valves and the cost of the pecs itself, it's very easy
to just build a manifold.
In fact you can build them quite easily and for almost the same cost as you would, it
would be to buy one.
Think about the appearance, think about the consistency, think about the time involved, think about
the materials that are involved and then make a decision on what makes more sense to you
to build it or to buy it.
In my case, I just purchased one.
And then for the manifold, you also have to figure out how you're going to secure it
in place.
You do have to anchor it securely if you're using a block wall you'll want to use screws
with wall anchors.
If you're anchoring it to wood, you want to make sure you can be on something secure
like a joist.
But oftentimes your manifold is not going to be wide enough to hit more than one joist.
So you may want to do a section of wood 2x4 or 1x2 or other things like that to go across
that you can anchor to the joists and then anchor your manifold to that section of wood.
Do not anchor a manifold to drywall.
I saw several warnings about this.
They're given the weight and some of the movements that you can get with the manifold and the
water starting and stopping.
It's just it's not a good idea to even try to anchor it to drywall.
Don't do it.
You anchor it to wood and then use that wood to span your joists and anchor it securely
to the joists.
Sometimes you may also want to insulate it from the wall.
In my case, I have the manifold up against a concrete block wall that can get cold in the
winter time.
So I chose to anchor it to some wood that was stood off a little bit from the block wall
and then anchor the wood to the block wall.
And then I put insulation between there as well.
So I have insulation and I have dead air separating the manifold and the pecs from the wall
so that there's less likelihood of it freezing.
So finally, you've got your manifold in.
You've got your pipes run.
You've got all your connections done.
You need to connect it to the main line.
Well, you have to make some decisions.
Are you going to replace?
What are you going to replace and what are you going to use?
Where are you going to connect it?
If I'm replacing it, I want to replace as much as I possibly can.
So I went back right to the regulator valve.
So I was replacing as much of the existing pipe as possible, limit the risks involved
in the old pipe that was remaining.
Also remember that size matters.
For most residential locations, you're going to be dealing with three quarter inch pecs
and half inch pecs.
Well, that main line, you want to be the three quarter inch pecs.
Sometimes you may even have a one inch pecs for your main line.
You want it to be as large as you can get it for your needs in order to ensure that you
have maximum water flow there.
So you'll have more flow with a larger diameter pipe and less flow with a smaller diameter pipe.
So make sure you match it up consistently with what was there.
Usually it will be three quarter inch coming in from the main water line.
That will come to a valve that will then split off to the cold water in line on your water
heater.
And then that will continue to your manifold.
And then from there you'll do half inch lines coming off the manifold.
If you're not doing that, you may continue a three quarter line for a certain amount
of the time to certain devices in your home and have a tee that comes off of that that
will take it down to a half inch line for those devices and eventually then taper it down
to a half inch line so you're keeping the pressure consistent.
But make sure that you plan accordingly and use the right size lines.
Next we'll talk about connecting it to your water heater.
You need to figure out where and how you're going to connect it.
If you're using a manifold, I ran that main three quarter inch water line to just above
the manifold.
I put a valve there that I could shut off the water above the manifold.
Different than my other main water shut off line that was on the other side of the garage.
So I have a shut off valve that's right there that's close by.
I put in a tee, ran a three quarter inch line from that tee to the cold water input on my
water tank and then another three quarter inch line coming off the hot water output of the
water tank going back to the hot water side of the manifold.
Now I put a valve there as well going right before the cold water goes into the water tank.
So I can turn off the water tank without turning off all the cold water in the house in case
I have to do maintenance on the tank in case I want to purge the tank, other things like
that.
So you want to consider how you're going to connect to the water heater.
Keeping in mind that oftentimes they will not want you to, code will not let you connect
the PECS which can be heat sensitive too close to the water tank itself.
So you need to check your code and see what's there but you want to protect it from heat,
protect it from being too close to the water tank itself, protect it from possibly a gas
event that's coming off the top of the water heater if it happens to be a gas water heater
where that hot air is coming off and you have a hot metal pipe that's venting those exhaust
gases out.
You want to make sure that it's not too close to there as well.
You may put insulation on it to shield it or route it in such a way that it's not close
to there.
If you choose to connect directly to the water heater, that's fine.
You can thread in an adapter that will match the threads on the water heater and that you
can then crimp your PECS directly too.
I was always taught you connect water heaters with pipe unions.
A pipe union is something that you can connect on both sides and then have a sleeve that's
threaded on so you do not have to turn the pipe on either side to connect it.
So I connected mine with short sections of pipe and pipe unions.
Once I got it all connected, I realized that really all I needed was a short section
of pipe and then I could go directly to the PECS.
If I ever redo that, I'll probably just take the pipe unions out because they can be more
of a headache than they're worth.
Given that you can oftentimes move the threaded connections that you have within PECS and
they'll move around within the sleeve without damaging the PECS itself, that's one thing.
And how inexpensive PECS is you can cut out a section if you need to replace the water
heater and then just crimp in a new replacement as needed.
So the need for pipe unions is much, much less.
Again, make sure you have a shut off valve on the cold water side.
It is not recommended to have a shut off valve on both sides of your water heater because
of the expansion that water does when it's heated, you can have some dangerous things
there.
So you put the shut off valve on the cold water side and you let the hot water side continue
out.
One other thing that may be needed in some areas is an expansion tank on the top of your
water heater.
Oftentimes, certain states, certain countries may have codes that require that expansion
tank to be on the hot water tank right above where the hot water comes out.
So you might want to double check your codes if you're redoing connections and your code
requires an expansion tank.
Now is a good time to put that in there.
And the use of silicone tape or pipe dope here on any threaded connections is going to
really help prevent leaks and allow you to have really good solid connections.
Finally connecting to your end points.
Keep in mind what you want to keep and what you want to replace.
Make sure you have your transition connectors.
We talked about those in a previous episode.
You might use SharkBite to connect to existing pipe.
You might use solder.
You might use threaded connections.
You might use glue if it's PVC.
It really depends on what you have.
Sometimes you may go all the way through and replace even the shut off valves that might
be under your sink or under your toilets and replace all of that or you might try to use
some of that.
It's really up to you.
But plan that and make your connections accordingly.
Also think about your exterior host taps.
If you've got outside connections for like a hose for washing your car or watering plants
or what have you, figure out how you want to connect to those.
Do you want to reuse some of those and just cut the pipe on the inside and connect to
it or do you want to replace it?
In my case I chose to replace it because the connections I had were not frost free or
anti-siphon and the codes right now require those to be frost free and anti-siphon connections.
I was able to get new hose taps with a pipe that went all the way through the block and
was able to put those in, anchor them on the outside so that they were secure, anchor them
on the inside.
Here is a time when having help can be handy because working on both sides of a wall at the
same time as an individual installer can be very difficult and you have to plan accordingly.
I had some challenges around there just going back and forth and back and forth and anchoring.
One side securely then coming onto the other side and trying to thread something on and
not being as secure as I thought it was going to be so help is better when you're working
on those exterior hose taps.
Great.
Now comes the time you've got everything connected and all ready to go and you're going to
start turning things on.
If you're using a manifold, turn on one section of time and I usually recommend to turn
it on from the bottom up so that water can flow down in and then you can be able to push
bubbles out and other things like that.
Open up the sink valves in your home that are on the other side of the manifold or if you're
not using a manifold, still open up all the sink valves and then ease on the main valve
a little bit at a time.
Let water start to flow so it's not under pressure.
It's just flowing through the pecs, flowing through the manifold if you're using it.
It's occupying the space.
It's pushing out some bubbles and then you're finally getting water that's starting to come
out different valves in different areas and sinks or tubs or what have you and you can
start to have water flowing through and you can check all of your areas for leaks.
Then increase the flow.
Now again, if you're doing it with a manifold, you're doing one section at a time so you
only have to check one piece at a time.
If you did not use a manifold and just replaced your existing plumbing, then you're going
to have to be checking the full line each time and then slowly increase that flow, increase
the flow.
You still have all the taps on and water's flowing.
You finally have the main feed valve on all the way so that water's flowing at the maximum
rate and you check for leaks.
When you don't start to see any leaks, start slowly turning off your sink taps one at
a time so that pressure starts to build in that pipe.
You don't want to turn it off hard so you have that thump of pressure coming back through
the pipes.
Initially, when you're checking for leaks, turn it off slowly and watch for leaks.
Turn off the next one slowly.
Turn off the next one slowly.
Keep an eye out for leaks.
Again, this is a section where having a partner can help a lot because you can have them
on a cell phone.
In my case, I did have a partner for this and I had a cell phone and an earbud in place
and I was under part of my house checking for leaks as I had the other individual turning
the water on.
In that case, I did have a leak and I had to say, stop, turn it off, turn it off and go
and repair that solder joint that I did a really poor job of and then have them retry
so that we did not have any leaks.
Now, let's pause there because we're talking about repairing a solder joint.
This is not in my script and just to be aware that I had PECS going to a connector that
I had soldered onto a section of copper pipe.
Well now, that copper pipe was leaking around the solder joint.
I could not heat up that copper pipe to resolder that while the PECS was connected.
It would melt the PECS.
Make sure when you're pulling these sections of PECS that you have extra pipe.
In this case, I had to cut that PECS close to where that was.
I had to then cut off the crimping and remove the small section of PECS that had been crimped
on there and let the copper pipe drain.
Then I could heat it up with my torch and resolder it and get it good and make sure I have
a good connection there.
Then wait for it to cool and then reconnect the PECS and re-crimp it.
Just be aware of some of those challenges if you have to reheat something afterwards
because PECS and the temperatures that you're using with a torch are not compatible.
All right, afterwards you've got it all done.
What do you want to do?
You cover any PECS that's exposed to light.
We talked about that earlier.
If it's going to be exposed to LED light, fluorescent light, sunlight, make sure that it's covered
so that it's not going to deteriorate over time.
Watch for leaks.
Repair any holes that you've made in drywall or other things like that to get the project
done.
Run your water daily to flush out a bad taste.
PECS can leave a little bit of a bad taste in the lines for the first several weeks to
a month.
In my case, first thing in the morning, I would go down to my kitchen and I would turn
on the hot water for a period of time.
This would purge the main water line where it was coming in from the mains to the hot water
tank and it would flood that out.
I didn't care about having bad tasting water in my hot water tank because I don't drink
the water from the hot water tank.
I don't cook with the water from the hot water tank so I didn't care about that.
I would run that until I had hot water going all the way to my kitchen on the longest
run so I insured that I had water purged out through that main line.
Then I would turn on the cold water and I would let that run for a period of time.
Because I have a refrigerator that has a water feed in there, I wanted to make sure that
that line was purged at least once a day.
At the beginning, twice a day, maybe three times a day, to get the water that was sitting
in the PECS absorbing the nasty tastes from being something that we were drinking.
In fact, we ended up drinking bottled water for several weeks until that was all worked
out.
But I continued to flush that on a regular basis.
You may want to do that as well to reduce the bad taste you have in the water.
Also you may have to have an inspection.
Again, depending on what the codes are in your area, you may have to have a licensed
inspector or a licensed plumber come and inspect your plumbing job and ensure that it's
okay and certify that it's okay.
That is the end of everything you always wanted to know about PECS.
If you liked it, leave a comment.
If you didn't like it, I don't want to hear your comment.
No, you can leave a comment as well.
This is not, again, the typical type of thing that we would hear on Hacker Public Radio,
but I thought it would be interest to some hackers.
So I recorded it.
I hope that you've enjoyed it.
I hope that you've learned something and have a fantastic day.
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