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yankeesouth
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# Posted: 14 Mar 2011 02:12pm
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Okay, I know the stuff gets a lot of good reviews. Here is my question. When Pex freezes does it burst like copper? I have seen responses both ways. I have read that Pex expands and does not burst or rupture. Other that what one reads on the internet which if it's on the internet it has to be true......... Does anyone have any personal experience with Pex freezing? Good or bad!!!
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GoinToClarksville
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# Posted: 14 Mar 2011 06:39pm
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In a pressurized line..yes...pex will freeze. I drain my lines at my cabin....do not bother to blow the lines...and come spring, I'm good to go....re-hook up and done deal.
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islandguy
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# Posted: 14 Mar 2011 10:00pm
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We have pex as well, and use rv antifreeze every fall. The pex may expand, but not where the crimps and joints are. I recall an experiment years ago, where a half inch thick steel ball was filled with water, then placed in a freezer. The water froze, then blew the ball apart with enough force to embed shrapnel into the freezer door.
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PlicketyCat
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# Posted: 18 Mar 2011 07:36pm
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We used PEX and it has frozen a couple times. It just expanded except right at the connectors... it didn't split though, it just popped itself off the crimp. We installed a quick drain manifold so we can gravity drain every line in the system (all three sinks and the storage tank) from one location under the crawlspace with simple twist of a valve. So now it's really easy for us to evacuate the system rapidly if it looks like we're in for -60 or we're going to be away from home.
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toyota_mdt_tech
Member
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# Posted: 19 Mar 2011 08:33pm
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Quoting: yankeesouth Okay, I know the stuff gets a lot of good reviews. Here is my question. When Pex freezes does it burst like copper? I have seen responses both ways. I have read that Pex expands and does not burst or rupture. Other that what one reads on the internet which if it's on the internet it has to be true......... Does anyone have any personal experience with Pex freezing? Good or bad!
Have a buddy who is a plumber. He swears by the stuff. Its flexible. He doesnt u se the shark bite fittings, he has a special tool and crimp bands,. it expands the pex, then slides it over the barbed fittings and it shrinks back down and clamps tight. It does expand, so it shouldnt burst. But turn you water off and then crank open the outdoor faucet to drain most of the plumbing or install a drain in a low point.
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toyota_mdt_tech
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# Posted: 19 Mar 2011 08:34pm
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I might add, Pex degrades in sunlight and cant touch concrete. If you go through concrete, just run it through some plastic pipe.
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Barnard
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# Posted: 30 May 2011 09:09am
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I plumbed our whole house with Pex 11 years ago. We have an "overlook" (a section of the main floor that is about 36 feet by 18 inches that extends outside, over the basement wall). Three times the Pex in that section has frozen. Oh, and not only the plumbing, but the radiant heating is Pex--and that was the Pex that was freezing, so we had no heat in the living room.
No damage to the Pex at all, at least that is observable. I could get a heat gun into the space below and eventually thaw it out. But this was no solution. So I put a small thermostat on the pipe that seemed the most likely to freeze first, a set-point-detector, and ran a wire to a small guage/relay that connects to the control box for the furnace. Now, when the temperature in that enclosed overlook gets below 40 degrees, the furnace sends hot water through the pipe. No problems at all for 8 years.
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quoddy camper
Member
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# Posted: 15 Jun 2011 05:09pm
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my uncle's place is plumbed with pex. the first 3 years when winterizing there was a low spot we could not drain. it froze all 3 years and the pipe did expand, but never burst or split. we have since installed low point drains on the system just in case. should be noted that there were no fittings in the low point, but the pipe withstood freezing 3 times.. hope this helps
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Anonymous
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# Posted: 23 Feb 2013 05:25pm
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Pex can touch concrete if it has an o2 barrier. It's how we run water lines to basement bathroom groups.
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customrunner
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# Posted: 23 Feb 2013 06:45pm
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Just a note the only pex that hase the true ability to expand and contract back is wersbo pex witch uses the expansion rings and tool for joints not crimping rings and tools it dose not need to be sleved to go in the ground or poured in concreat but you can buy it pre sleved or sleve it your self if you wish and yes the sun is bad for all pex water pipping products.
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rick norris
Member
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# Posted: 18 Feb 2014 09:23pm
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I recently installed pex to replace some of the copper pipes in a bathroom that had burst during a short freeze earlier this winter. Once water was running again,.. another freeze came around. I ignorantly decided to try turning off the water main during the freeze the next time. Wrong answer. Everything froze easier and the standing water in the low spots of the plumbing froze and burst about 10 more places in the galvanized pipes. None of the new pex pipes burst,... BUT.....I used both shark-bite connectors and compression connectors at the joints and 2/3 of the sharkbite fittings broke and had to be replaced. None of the compression fittings broke and there were a lot more of them. Interestingly enough, I plumbed the bathroom sink with one shark bit drop-ear (hot) and one compression drop ear, they were right next to each other and the shark-bite connection broke. On one other house, I had installed shark-bites to fix a burst copper pipe, and on that one, the shark-bite fitting pushed off the end and just had to be pushed back on. That was pretty easy, but the water bill was pretty high. My conclusion is this: shark-bites are great for a quick easy fix on a frozen pipe repair, but if you don't take measures to keep the pipe from freezing again, the shark-bite might fail on the next freeze. I'm using pex on the rest of my repairs, but I'm afraid I am opening myself up to failures by rat chews. In addition, I don't know how well the polymer bonds of the pipe will stand up to time; I suspect that the pex pipe might get brittle over time due to chemical breakdown.
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old243
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# Posted: 18 Feb 2014 11:19pm
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Just a method we used in the town water dept, to get water flowing in a frozen pipe . underground or someplace you can't get at.
We got a garden sprayer, took the wand off at the control handle. got a brass fitting that fit, in it , with a tang end that would go in a thin plastic tubing . 3/16 or 1/4 inch , smaller the better.We had about 30 feet of tubing , but it could be shorter. In the other end we had a brass plug with a small hole in it . Jet nozzle. The tubing we used was fairly stiff so it didn't collapse. Not sure where to get the parts, we probably cobbled it up.
Fill the sprayer full of hot water, pump the pressure up. shove the tube in the pipe until you hit the ice, start pumping hot water in , keep feeding the pipe in as the ice melts. You will be through the ice in no time . I had a pipe to my water bowl, in the barn, that froze underground most winters. No problem getting it going. Old 243
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Nirky
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# Posted: 18 Feb 2014 11:40pm
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Plumbed my house this winter with PEX because of the no-split nature of the tubing when temps get low. Here is a vid of a guy (plumber) freezing PEX:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7louMO0q5wI
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