Episode: 3614
Title: HPR3614: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About PEX Part 02- The Joy of PEX - What is it and how is it us
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr3614/hpr3614.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-25 02:11:58

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 3,614 for Thursday 9 June 2022.
Today's show is entitled, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About PEX Part.
It is hosted by Trey and is about 14 minutes long.
It carries a clean flag.
The summary is.
It is about PEX and how it is used.
Welcome back to the series, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About PEX.
This is Part 2, The Joy of PEX.
What it is and how it is used.
My name is Trey.
Welcome on this journey.
So what is PEX?
According to Wikipedia, cross-linked polyethylene tubing is commonly abbreviated PEX.
That's Papa Echo X-ray or XPE, X-ray Papa Echo or X-LPE, X-ray Lima Papa Echo.
It's very confusing.
I'm putting a link to the Wikipedia article for cross-linked polyethylene in the show
notes.
We will call it PEX.
This tubing is made out of cross-linked polyethylene chains.
Comes in type A, type B, and type C, and these differ based on the process used to make
them and the resulting properties of the tubing produced.
PEX is used for a variety of different products, including insulation and high voltage, high
tension electrical cables, domestic water pipes, which is what we'll be talking about in
this series, irrigation and hydroponic systems, natural gas and oil pipes, and even chemical
handling and storage systems, so it is a very versatile product.
Let's talk a little bit about its use for domestic plumbing.
The advantages of PEX for domestic plumbing are wide-ranging.
The first is it's flexible, making it easy to install and fish through walls and crawl
spaces in getting it into areas where you might otherwise have difficulty with a long
rigid pipe.
It will stretch a little bit, making it less likely to rupture if water contained within
PEX freezes.
I'm sure you've heard about or maybe even experienced a pipe bursting when it freezes.
As you may know, water when it freezes expands when it transitions from liquid to a solid.
That's why ice floats on top of water because it's less dense than the water itself.
It expands.
Well, if it expands in something like a pipe, that pressure has to go somewhere and oftentimes
it will result in the pipe bursting, but because PEX will stretch a little bit, if the water
inside PEX freezes, it is less likely to rupture the tubing.
It does not rust and it does not easily corrode.
We'll talk about some circumstances when it can corrode a little bit later in this episode.
It's also much, much less expensive than copper.
Copper is very expensive right now and copper tubing is significantly more expensive than
would be PEX if you're doing repairs and replacements or even a new install.
New installs and houses now use PEX instead of copper.
It comes in multiple colors for easy identification.
For example, when I did my install, I used blue for cold water, red for hot water, making
it easy for me to see which was which.
You can also see yellow often times used for gas lines and a variety of different things
like that.
It also comes in clear, so many different colors.
It's easy to cut.
This is a simple hand cutter to simply snip it off.
It's very easy to cut.
As opposed to like a steel pipe, which you might have to use a hacksaw to cut or copper pipe,
which you'd have to use a tubing cutter and twist it around and around and around tight
and get each time until you cut through the pipe with PEX.
It's much easier just to snip and you're ready to go.
The connectors are easy to put on and this is the process for that will vary depending
on the type of PEX that you're using.
Let's talk about this a little bit.
PEX type A is what we call expansion PEX.
It is designed for expanding to go over a connector.
For example, you would take the end of the PEX that you want to hook to your connector
and you would slide a sleeve that's also made of PEX.
It's just a little bit larger in diameter over the end where the connector is going to
go.
You have a double layer of PEX now.
Then you get the special tool that inserts into the PEX and expands a specific amount
and it'll expand and rotate, expand and rotate, expand and rotate.
It's stretching that whole end of the tubing.
Then you simply slide that expanded end over the PEX A connector and you have to use a
PEX A style connector with PEX A tubing and then let it shrink back to normal size and
it will create a seal.
I'm including a link in the show notes showing that process in a YouTube video.
The advantages of PEX A are it's fast and easy to install.
You can install it in tight places since the tool does not have to be right in the tight
place where your connector is.
You can have the tool in the end of the tubing out, stretch it, then put it in there quickly
slide it onto the connector, let it shrink back up again.
So that makes it very easy to install in a lot of places where it would be more difficult
to install a different type of tubing.
PEX A is also more resistant to damage from kinks if it is bent too tight or into too
tight or radius.
With PEX A, if it does kink, you can straighten it back out again, warm it up with a little
bit of a heat gun and it will return back to its normal shape and you're good to go.
You don't want to overheat it obviously, but a little bit of warmth can straighten that
out.
It's also more resistant to damage from freezing.
We talked about that, you know, the PEX expanding if something inside of it freezes and expands.
PEX A will expand more than PEX B will without rupturing.
So those are the advantages of it.
The disadvantages are the tool to actually expand the end is very expensive.
Most of the times I've seen it run anywhere from 300 to 600 US dollars for the tool.
So in the United States, PEX A is generally a professional plumbers type of product.
And you can get the PEX A connectors from professional plumbers and from professional plumbing
supplyhouses, but they're not as available in your typical hardware and home improvement
store.
They do not have as much of a variety of them.
That's why in my case I ended up choosing PEX B and we'll get into that in another
episode.
So let's talk about PEX B. PEX B is what we call crimp PEX.
So it does not stretch to go over the end of the connector.
Instead the process for putting a connector on it is you take a metal ring or a band
and you place it around the end of the PEX B tubing that you're wanting to connect to
your connector.
Then the tubing is and the band are slipped over the end of the desired, you know, PEX B
connector and you have to use a PEX B type connector with PEX B type tubing.
Then a special tool is used to crimp that metal ring or a different tool may be used to
tighten the metal band, creating a seal between the PEX and the PEX connector.
Again I'm going to include a link in the show nuts showing you how PEX B is crimped
onto a connector.
The advantages of PEX B is it's fast and easy to install.
It's a little bit slower than PEX A but it's still fast and easy to install.
The crimping tools are much less expensive than the tools for PEX A and there's a higher
availability and a wider range of connectors at typical home improvement stores in the
United States.
The disadvantages of PEX B is if PEX B is kinked that portion is no longer safe to use
and it must be replaced.
It is also more difficult to get connections done in tight places because oftentimes the
crimping tools require a lot of pressure and the handles will expand and contract a
significant amount, almost like a bolt cutter.
You really have to swing them out wide and bring them in far to get the ring crimped properly.
It can be difficult to do that in tight places.
I ended up investing in a battery powered crimping tool that could really get into
tighter places and made that process much, much easier.
Also that can be remedied if you choose to use shark bite press on fittings for your
PEX and another disadvantage is it is less resistant to damage from freezing like we
talked about earlier.
All of the connections for PEX A and PEX B can be easily removed if you want to reuse
the connectors.
So you simply cut off the ring or cut off the band or cut off the particular section of
PEX that you're working on and then cut off the crimping, remove the PEX and then reuse
the connector as long as you don't cut in deep enough that you damage the ridges on
the connectors.
These are many of the advantages of using PEX.
We talked about the advantages of PEX A and PEX B. Are there any disadvantages to using
PEX?
Well, there are.
The first is that it is damaged by ultraviolet light from sunlight or even from ultraviolet
light from LED or fluorescent lighting.
You'll want to check your manufacturer's specifications to see how it is rated and
what it is what it can be exposed to.
Most PEX is typically rated for only 30 to 60 days of sun exposure before it begins
to deteriorate.
Then what happens is the PEX can become susceptible to corrosion by chlorine in water and it can
become brittle and you really do not want to use PEX that has been exposed to UV light
or sunlight for any length of time.
I will include two links in the show notes for some videos and information about PEX and
UV light.
As a result, you'll want to make sure that when you do install it, any sections that
are going to be exposed to light are covered so that the light is not hitting the PEX directly.
The long-term durability of PEX is really yet to be determined when we think about the
fact that we've used copper pipe in houses for hundreds of years and have hundreds of
years worth of experience with what the copper will do over time and what it will work for
and what it won't work for.
We just don't have that much time with PEX, but we're getting more and more all the
time and learning a lot and it does seem to be a much more durable replacement for copper.
We're also that it's non-conductive so it will not make for an electrical ground.
If you have copper pipes in your house that you're using to ground certain portions of
your electrical system and then you replace a section of that copper pipe with PEX between
where you've made that electrical connection and where the copper actually goes out of your
house into the ground, it could create a problem.
You no longer have that electrical connectivity there.
You'll be aware of that.
If you're making changes from copper to PEX, you'll have to go through and make sure
that you're not putting your house at a electrical safety hazard because of the way some of your
grounds may be connected.
It's also not rigid.
It must be supported.
In fact, there are rules for how often it must be supported.
You'll want to check your local plumbing codes to see how often it must be supported over
a horizontal stretch and how often it must be supported for a vertical stretch, different
things like that.
Make sure you look into those and take a good plan to make sure that you support it properly
because the weight of the water inside it can cause it to bend.
Speaking of bending, it can only bend a certain radius before it kinks.
There are guides that you can get that can cause that you can run it through to make sure
that it does not bend any further than it's supposed to and they help a lot.
You can install little elbows if you have to make really tight bends.
You can just crimp on an elbow and go from there.
PEX may induce an odd taste to your water for the first few weeks that you're using it.
I noticed that in my install for the first maybe two to three weeks every morning, I would
run the water for a minute to flush all the water that had been sitting in the PEX
overnight out and then it was when I drank the water, it did not taste odd.
After a month, you could not even tell the difference in the taste.
So be aware that it can have a short-term negative influence on the taste of your water.
But some people say that that taste is just the tip of the iceberg and that PEX might
leak toxins into your water.
I've seen articles that support that.
I've seen articles that refute that.
Do your own research.
I'm including a link with each position in the show notes.
If you're going to use PEX, research it for yourself.
Come to your own conclusions before you go ahead and install it.
Well, we've reached the end of part two, the joy of PEX.
Thank you for listening and stay tuned for part three and I wish you well.
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