Dezincification

Geico266

Geico266

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Geico
Sounds like a funny word, but it is not gonna be funny for long if you built or bought a new house with plastic PEX tubing. Dezincification be on a lot of lips of a lot of homeowners in the near future I'm afraid. A class action lawsuit will be the only way I can see to fix the problem, I'm looking at $30,000 for my house alone.

Dezincification is the corrosion of brass (copper + zinc = brass). The zinc is leeched out of the brass when water passes through it leaving a porus copper fitting that can leak and or fail. Brass fitting are used in 45 and 90 degree turns in houses built with PEX. The fitting installed 5-10 years ago are failing in our area. We built our house 3 years ago and I took a look at several fittings and the tell tail "white powder" on the brass fittings was evident. :mad::mad::mad:

I told the plumber I wanted copper pipe, but he talked me into the damn PEX **** and now we may have to replumb the house. We will certainly have to replace all the cheap Chinese brass fittings with the improper amount of zinc in them. All brass fitting are susceptible to this corrosion, but the Chinese crap is failing much faster than the old stuff.

I knew I should have used copper, but was talked out of it. If you are building a house or buying a house DO NOT USE PEX PLUMBING!!! :no:
 
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I remember my first house, done with polybutylene piping. Oops, what do you mean chlorine in the water degrades the plastic? The underground line from my meter was replaced as part of the class action suit. A buddy and I replaced all of the interior piping with copper one weekend. Luckily, that was before copper prices went nuts.
 
kyleb said:
I remember my first house, done with polybutylene piping. Oops, what do you mean chlorine in the water degrades the plastic? The underground line from my meter was replaced as part of the class action suit. A buddy and I replaced all of the interior piping with copper one weekend. Luckily, that was before copper prices went nuts.
Click to expand...

Remember the formaldehyde foam feasco? They literally had to tear some homes down.

The estimate I have is $30,000. Walls will have to be opened up, ceilings taken down, title removed and replaced. What a ****ing mess. :mad:
 
There was an entire development of houses that had that plastic pipe. A class action law suit and the builder had to replace a lot of fittings.
 
I think this quality area of Chinese made crap is going to affect everything down the road in 20-30 years, screws, outlets, switches, fixtures, etc. and so on. It is all made overseas and is crap but you won't know for a long time. Good luck.
 
is the 'telltale white powder' on the outside of the fittings or are you looking at the inside?
 
I'm not familiar with the "symptoms" Larry describes because I've never been on a project that allowed, or lived in a house that was built with, PEX.

That said, it may very well be a regional issue caused by the minerals in certain areas' water.
 
My Texas house is plumbed with PEX tubing. It works great. Alaska house plumbing that's been remodeled in the past 10 years is PEX, too. If I build again that's what I'd expect them to use. I don't recall any mid-line fittings, just terminations. The manifolds are in easy reach and I can shut off any circuit I want in the domestic plumbing. Way handy.
 
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If you plumb something with PEX then make sure you oversize everything one size from what you would use if you were using copper. The fittings are constricting and far smaller than "pipe size."

Personally, I'd never use it...it's like the vinyl siding of plumbing systems...
 
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We had a new house built a few years ago. It had PEX. I added some plumbing downstairs for another bathroom and did some tests to see just how reliable that stuff was. I was wondering if the plastic would pop off the fittings under pressure. I made up a short test piece, took it to the shop, filled it with hydraulic fluid and put the pressure to it. The plastic swelled and burst; never did move on the fitting. Over 900 psi to burst it! I showed the inspector; he was impressed.

There were no copper fitting between the manifolds in the furnace room and the various outlets. It would be relatively simple to replace faulty fittings.
 
I don't think pec has a problem if you use plastic fittings,the copper and pec don't get along together.
 
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