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Jim doesn't seem grumpy at all! Seems like a sweet, smart guy. Thanks Jim! -Homeowner preparing for a full DIY Pex repipe!

I fear plastic and I like copper so I'm going to switch out the old galvanized with the pricey copper. Thank you grumpy plumber for your service.

I've been a tile contractor for 46 years and I've found that all good plumbers are grumpy. :- )

I have built 2 homes myself with no formal experience and I've done copper pipe repairs, water heaters, valves etc. The first home I chose CPVC lots of connections very affordable and durable (some sections froze multiple times and thawed with no leaks). The second home I chose PEX, not as many connections but absolutely no leaks when I charged the system for the first time. Hands down PEX is superior. Also, we know you are an honest contractor when you aren't afraid to recommend the less expensive option!

I spent my life as a plumber. I retired about five years ago. I live in an ancient house and started by tearing out all the old galvanized and replumbed the house with copper. In the process of digging a basement beneath the two-storey house, I had plenty of problems with the copper freezing and bursting. So I started replacing it with polybutylene. Eventually, I finished the basement and did the entire house with a polybutylene manifold. It's been great, but now my city is concerned with boil order problems and plans to permanently chlorinate the water, which is death to PB. So now I'm replacing all the PB with PEX. In theory, PEX will last from 50 to 100 years. They're saying the life of PB is ten to fifteen years, but mine's been in for about 30 and I've never had a single problem with it.

I was looking for this exact information and you described it very well. I live in a 1940’s farmhouse and think I’m going to do it! Thanks and keep it up!

Thanks for this "down to brass tacks" approach, you've helped me decide that I'm replumbing my home with pex. Keep the greatness coming!

I'm at the copper / PEX decision point myself right now. Well water with pH around 5 has eaten my copper piping in the 35 years since the house was built. I actually have perforations to fix at two different locations on the same day recently. I'm very good at soldering, have done a lot of it without a single leak ever. However, I can't justify the dramatically higher cost of copper, so I'm going with PEX. Consider this: type L 1/2" copper pipe $4.30/lf...type B 1/2" PEX tubing $0.30/lf. TCopper is 14 TIMES MORE Expensive. Price of fittings (factoring in the cost of crimp or cinch rings) isn't dramatically different. About the ONLY advantage I can think of for copper is its resistance to UV light, which PEX can't tolerate.

Hi Jim! I am a licensed plumber in Australia who has been involved in the building industry for over 50 years, and I have operated a plumbing design consultancy for the last 30 of those years. I agree with your assessment of Pex pipe systems and the product is very popular with both cottage and commercial plumbers here. There is no doubting it is a good product, but I see a lot of bad installations when I carry out site inspections, and it should be stressed that the product needs to be installed correctly if it is to be trouble free. Allowance for expansion and contraction in the material is crucial, and the manufacturers have specific requirements to achieve this. However, I regularly see the manufacturer’s specifications for installation totally ignored. DYI installers love the stuff, as it is easy to install, and they generally have no issues with it. However, they should take care with the product, and a search for advice on the manufacturers website is recommended. As I said it is a good product, but as an old plumber, it is hard for me to look at a ‘spaghetti - like’ installation with any admiration. Give me copper every time!

We just had our first leak with 32 year old cpvc. I'm getting ready to replace most of it with pex. Thanks for the video.

Thank you for sharing, I am in the process of updating my pipes to PEX tubing for my entire house. At first I was a bit nervous about plastic and with this info I feel much better now. Thank you again for posting this video! 👍👍

As someone who is in the beginning stages of planning a new build home in Michigan, this is good to hear.

And before galvanized pipes were lead pipes. The Latin for lead is "plumbum", hence the person that works on it is a "plumber". Great video.

I’m in the middle of re-piping my house. I have copper and I’ve had 4 pinhole leaks in the past year. The last leak did a lot of damage so I decided to try to get ahead of this problem. I’m switching to Pex-A. I’ve been a copper guy but Pex is so easy. The only problem so far is sourcing parts and the cost of the expansion tool.

Good to hear I just purchased PEX A expandable pipe for my house and I can hardly wait until I finish the install

🤗Thank you for this information. Bought an older home & the city's water is at the top level of allowed chlorine!! The chlorine fumes from the water burns our noses & eyes when the cold water is on. Toilets, tubs, & shower are turning blue! Someone told me to change copper pipes to pex. I wanted to see what Grumpy 😊had to say about pex

I did DIY of my whole house in Pex with manifolds years ago. Glad I did.

During the recent housing boom, I watched some of those projects go up, everything is pex. When my plumber replaced my HWH, he used ProPress fittings on my copper pipes, and when it was last replaced, I recall; how much longer it took for them to solder the pipes. Tech moves forward!

I prefer PEX water lines everywhere but for drinking water. Copper is antimicrobial. If I were building or remodeling I would consider installing a high copper "loop" for my cold side kitchen sink and for icemaker water supply. The longer loop would allow more time for the copper to kill germs.

Wife's little cousin bought a ratty house on a crawl with gacked galvanized that flowed at a leisurely tinkle and tasted like a boiled egg shoved up a robot's undercarriage. It was a joy to Sawzall that out and install a Viega Manabloc and replumb the whole place in PEX. Of course I let her do the crawlspace part because she's young and skinny and I'm old and fat. And hello from Downriver!

Love it. My dad is a grumpy electrician so I learned a lot about electric but the one thing he wouldn't mess with was plumbing. He always said "electricity and water don't mix" Could you tell us about radiant heat? I know it's not technically plumbing but it's an integral part of the system.

Thanks. I'm going to refurbish a home and was going with copper. I'm going to use PEX now.

I was really curious how the grumpster would feel about pex as I really respect his experience and tells it like it is. I've had for 23 years and never had a problem.

Just watched several videos about copper vs pex. Yours was the best. Short but you covered all the main points. I don’t need to ask the gardener.

DIY homeowner here. I vastly prefer pex for its ease of use. My old copper system had erosion issues so I swapped it all out with PEX. Did all the PEX in a single day whereas it wouldve taken me 4x as long to put in new copper.

We had all 3 in our house... galvanized iron, copper and Pex. After 3 failed attemps at trying to do our copper to pex conversion and them all busting... we said screw it and literally redid all our plumbing, changing it all to pex. Our house is small and we were redoing our bathrooms.. so it was feasible. But it was the best decision we ever made, and it was SO EASY!!! I tell you what we hated was dealing with cast iron piping.. that was crazy.. they were so gunked up we were glad we were able to just redo our sanitary lines to plastic. It was 70 years of filth lining those can't iron pipes. So gross 🤣

About to build and learning about PEX so this was great to watch. 🌟

I appreciate the both of you! I have a Century double wide built-in 1994. What a nightmare! It has the old Poly grey tubing. First to go was my kitchen floor! Woke up one morning to a puddle in my living room!. Pin hole leak under my sink cabinet and it swam under the lanoleum to the living room!. Lost the "who said that particle board was okay for floor board!?" Kitchen floor. Frustrating and to just make a long story short. I myself am going to rip all of it out and replace it with pex A. Please wish me luck (I am a girl) I'm not a plumber but I can follow a pattern. Frankly very tired of washing dishes in a dish tub in the bathroom.

I spent most of afternoon trying to solder the pipes to replace a broken shower. Ended up cutting it out and going to the store to get some PEX tubing.

My house Built-in 1880 has CPVC and it's so easy to fix

Thank you this was great. Doing my first repipe with pex tomorrow

Also check out PE-RT piping and expansionable Zurn Pex B piping. PE-RT piping is recyclable, and allegedly stands up to chlorine/chloramine.

Been many types of "plastic tubing", CPVC I dislike, PB (Polybutylene) caused all kinds of issues. Copper is best IMO unless you have certain water conditions, acidic comes to mind. PEX -A is great. They all fail over time, but a pinhole is sure better then a snapped off pipe (CPVC).

I like this guy! He reminds me of Dr. Emmett Brown

Pex-A Uponor pipe is the only plumbing lines I would use. You can do it yourself.

He doesn’t seem grumpy at all!

Just the savings in labor makes it a winner.

High psi, thermal expansion can take out any pipe, fitting or fixture. I've seen a PEX pipe rupture down fitting to fitting nearly. Couple feet tear. Micro cracks are prone to certain PEX types if not all. The ruptures I've seen on copper have been less damaging. Unless someone doesn't know how to solder or didn't get enough pipe in the fitting then of course you'll have trouble. The iron, copper, PEX what do they all do to our systems. Home and body? How about stainless steel making it's way up? I mean we use it for water bottles right. Never know. Water content is important as well. Surrounding medium pipe might pass through in ground. Is your copper poly sleeved? Does your piping have insulation for cold temps? Do you have an expansion tank? Different water content will act differently to copper, galvanized, PEX etc. Same with if you have a gas/electric or tankless. They do different things when heating the water. Calcium and other crystals in the water will act differently as well.

What a beautiful young ladie. I liked this vid.

I want to install lead pipes because I think water tastes better with them. It has a clean taste. Would you consider making a video about this?

Thumbs up. JIM ROCKS!!!

I didn't realize they had been using plastics for so long!

Thank you for this video I appreciate it. God Bless you.

People that claim that their water delivered in their new PEX piping system tastes different, might just be tasting "normal" water for the first time in a very long time, especially if they have converted from galvanized piping.

Grumpy Plumber is correct. Pex-A Uponor.

I'm gonna do this Jim!!

a good conversation.

Sure would appreciate the Grumpy Plumber's guidance on draining a hydronic heating system and boiler.

plumbed my new house with pex and shrink clamp rings in 1/4-1/3 the time of copper and half the cost.

Would Jim be a fan of propress? Pretty much the same reasons for instal. Easy and efficient. Frameless and safe. That said it’s not inexpensive like PEX but it’s all copper.

Ok, PEX... do you have a preference of WHICH BRAND? AND, what about the smaller diameter from the connections? Would you use a larger tubing diameter to compensate for that? Thanks

As a plumber doing insurance call outs in Spain, i would never use pex in my house,.i get many call outs for pex, its easy to repair ( i use rtm pieces i wont buy the expander because i dont instal it)but its prone to fissures pinholes and blow outs if a thermostat fails

Had some old leaky copper pipes in the garage replaced with PEX tubing. The plumber who did the job agrees with you that PEX is better. Suggests that I replace the rest of the copper pipes in the house with PEX before they leak. What are your thoughts on this? Thanks for the informative channel. I sometimes post them on Nextdoor.

Being from NW Minnesota I challenge his coldest place on Earth! But if he's from the UP close enough.

Very informative thank you!! Wise man

As a 32 year Master Plumber, I would agree. I resisted it at first because I was trained copper and PEX looked like trailer piping. But after two rough in's, I was convinced. PEX all the way. Just keep rodents out of you crawl space. They will chew through it for water during a dry spell.

Be sure and use Pex A it's the best system ever.

Copper all the way for me the fact that my 100 year old house has copper solder and has stood the test of time and another factor is them big rats we get here in UK they chew threw the PEX like butter

I'd like Jim's insight on propress technology, when you factor that into the plastic vs copper debate

Great video, thanks for the advice, can you insulate the pipes from freezing and some how keep the rodents out? 10k for copper 8K for plex insulation & rodent prevention extra!

My brother asked the gardener what to do & the gardener hooked up the new sprinkler system to the fire sprinkler supply & when the sprinklers come on so does the fire alarm! Bueno amigo.

Pitting in copper is why I wish our house had used Pex.

Thanks for ❤️ on my comment! I’m getting ready to replace short sections of 1/2 inch PB piping, with PEX B, but have to stay with 1/2 inch Pex, vs 3/4 inch. I will be using Sharkbite barb fittings and crimp rings. Will this be sufficient for water pressure? Any info would be appreciated. And Cheer up, stop being so dang Grumpy! 😲😳🙄😁😀😃😂🤣👍✌🏻🇺🇸

🤔 DIY PEX ...? Sounds interesting.

I'm learning more and more. I am now sub'd!!

Copper has skyrocketed the last couple of years.

I agree that PEX is a very good system. My question is, what clamping system do you recommend? What do you think of Shark bite fittings?

With all that's been discovered about plastic ( bpa, etc.) prefer to leave plastic tubing out of my house

We had six breaks in our copper pipes here in Houston this last 2 weeks of cold weather.

pex, you can do it right at the second yourself. Copper, it is at the mercy of a plumber and waiting.

Pex life expectancy is generally considered 50-100 years. Type M copper is 25-50 years. Type L copper has about the same life expectancy of pex. Type K copper is over 100 years. Failures on copper for me are generally on old 90 degree fittings where the water turbulence rubs a pin hole in it.

If the water pressure from the street in many California cities have such high water pressure, would they not set the regulator on the house to a lower setting?

Can you comment on probability for leaks? Particularly related to connections? A fair amount of litigation has occurred over the years relating to failed connections. Of particular concern if the tubing is behind walls

licensed Plumber 41 years, I would never use anything other than copper pipe, always use Type L wall thickness, if you use Type M then you'll have pin holes years later.

Plastic also busts easily dries out etc. Not saying soldering isn't a ton of work. And not saying I haven't had some of my copper pipes led to pvc. But. I have no idea what pex is lol so there is that.

By the way - I would assert that the taste of water is affected by the choice of copper or PEX. The copper piping in my primary residence has an unpleasant taste created by the oxidation of the inside of the copper pipes due to the pH of the water being around 5, and I cringe every time I drink tap water there. The plastic piping in my second (leisure) residence has no such taste, and I thoroughly enjoy drinking the untreated tap water there. Both houses are on deep wells, though obviously the geology and aquifers are not identical.

I had a customer that didn't want to convert to PEX piping, because it could melt if his house burned down. I agreed that it would probably melt, then squirt water everywhere and put the fire out. LOL

I feel like most plumbers push PEX so they can make their own jobs easier, not because PEX is necessarily better.....and with the health issues associated with plastics these days, id rather spend the extra money installing copper.

Love the advice and the knowledge, but with this specific issue I'd have to disagree and that's only because I've spent countless hours researching the negative effects of pex tubing in terms of what is being added to the water supply. There are lots of studies going on illustrating the harmful affects that plastic piping such as pex can cause. I'm not sure we as a society have given such products enough time to see what's happening to our water supplies. I would stick with a natural material such as copper, but if you had the money (I mean a ton of it) the ultimate solution in terms of water quality would be medical grade stainless steel such as 316, but again, who has the cash for that kind of commitment? Pex is obviously cheaper overall like Jim explained, but I just don't trust plastic in potable water situations. To each his own.

Good pex fittings for pex B generally cost twice what sweat copper fittings cost, but still less than propress copper fittings.

This was great. My home was built in 1973 and I may have a leak. I have been told it would be smart to just go ahead and re-pipe because a leak detection service will cost around $3-500 for them just to say yes or no on the leak. My water bill is increasing steadily but it's not exorbitant. I do not have a pool, btw. What do you recommend?

I'm buying a home in LA built in the 1930s. Inspector said foundation plumbing looks to have poor workmanship. Pipe mix of copper and galvanized. I plan on replacing the plumbing. Saw a video saying if property is prone to rodents, copper would be best. So i plan on doing copper foundation plumbing, and thinking pex for the water fixtures. Do you think good idea? Im refrigeration tech btw...

Having done many plumbing projects using PEX, be warned. DO NOT use brass fittings if you are on a well. They are apparently fine with Municipal treated water, but on a dug or drilled well, they WILL fail. Use plastic fittings.

PEX has a 30 year lifespan. Its not going to last nearly as long as say copper, but copper is expensive where as PEX is cheap. So there is the trade-off. The downside to PEX is that its indoor piping only. You can't use it outside, the UV rays will deteriorate it and rodents can chew threw it nor is it fire resistant. The upside to PEX is its cheap and easly customizable.

Grumpy Plumber, thanks for the advice, I found this video very helpful! My 1 year old son enjoyed it too! I live in Richmond, VA and have Quest piping in my house, and had a leak recently that caused damage to my home. Should I replace the Quest piping with PEX piping or just roll the dice and keep my quest?

HEHE, the only time I've ever tasted something in the water was when they had overused some of the flux. lol

Hi Jim,how do i keep the shower pressure from dropping when someone flushes the toilet or waters the garden? I have city water,open. I have net yet checked my pressure with a water test gauge. Your suggestions are welcomed,Thankyou !

Can you put heat tape on PEX?

PEX is okay except I have trouble making a good solder joint. Maybe a bigger torch?

Besides copper pipe bring antimicrobial I don't see much of a difference but that is a plus that people don't think about.

Do you trust shark bite style connections to last a long time?

I don't know a ton about this stuff. It seems that PEX is pretty much better aside from rodents. Supposedly they will chew it up sometimes, but how often does that really happen? Not sure. I guess it depends on where you live and other factors. So far I've seen everyone brag about PEX. In terms of how much pressure PEX can hold. I'm not sure if that matters. Let's say it flexes and expands a little bit, that will make up for a lot of the freezing and the overall pressure will be lower by default.

I mean hell if hes telling you that you can do it yourself than it must be pretty doable. Seems like a straight talking guy

I have a question can you do a partial re plumbing in a home? Thank you for your time.

What about cost difference?

Are shark bite connectors worth it? Do they leak? What is the nest way to use them?

Thanks you for the video! Is there a particular brand you recommend? I would prefer a non-made in china brand, preferably something made in the USA, Canada, Japan, Western Europe. Thanks!

Dear Jim, I have a 1928 home with pre-EPA 'water-wasting' toilets. I seem to recall reading that 'back in the day' (1920's) soil pipes leading to the main sewer were at a *different* pitch than modern soil pipe pitch specifications. That would mean that when using modern low-water toilets, water would run ahead of the solids causing build-ups and clogs in the main. (Ugh!) My local Master Plumber accused me of 'smokin' the drapes,' with the drapes being woven from the finest hemp. According to him there has been no change in the specification of the main pitch from the home to the sewer. What do you remember about the pitch of the main soil pipes to the sewer?