plastic piping

Water Systems said:

Every time the topis is raised it produces a vast amount of post slamming it. If it was faultless you would not get this.

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Your reasoning is not logical - there is more than one explanation for the tirade of subjective criticism levelled at plastic products.

The people who doggedly insist that copper is the only 'proper' plumbing material appear to be very anxious - I surmise that they believe the growing use of plastic will make their skills less valuable.

The fact is that there is no single product that suits all circumstances. There's a time and place for copper, and brass, and plastic, and soldered, and compression, and pushfit. To refuse to use plastic is similar to believing that pozidrive screws are a new fangled gadget suitable only for the DIY market.

water systems said:

Compression is as quick as pushfit.
and

[plastic means fewer fittings]
Fallacy. Overall they use about the same amount of fittings.

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Now is it the number of years since doing any work, or the advancing senility, which makes him say things like those?

Water Systems said:

Slugbabydotcom said:

I have never started a fire when fitting plastic.

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Neither have I using copper and compression.

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That sort of went without saying. Just like I assumed that you werent referring to plastic pipe being used on gas earlier.

Water Systems said:

Use the plastic cutters, insert the pipe insert, smear in grease and push in. O ring comes out occassionally. Component failure.

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But this is one you detected at the time of installation! If I get a funny looking olive on a compression fitting, then I change it. If I get a weak grab ring on a push-fit fitting, then I change it. All products have their failures - the skill is in finding the faults before you walk away from the job.

I have a had a stop end shoot out and embed itself in the wall opposite.

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Which brand?

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Speedfit.

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In that case I suggest that you report the problem to the manufacturer, or use a different brand. Personally, I don't use Speedfit pipe.

I maintain a set of about 50 rented properties on a large two-year-old estate. All of the plumbing leaks have been on brass/copper tap connectors, or brass compression joints on Gledhill heat exchangers, or shared copper overflow runs, and no leaks whatsoever on the plastic pipe and pushfit fitttings (despite them being Polyplumb, which I don't favour).

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Lucky man. Your luck will run out.

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All of the available objective evidence is to the contrary, since they were installed correctly.

These guys can fit copper pipes quicker when using end feed. They know when finished the copper setup will have no failures.

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Yeah I've seen the kind of work they do - the pipework looks like the solder and flux have been sprayed on.

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Not these boys.

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And yet they don't have the skills to install push-fit fittings.

I have plastic pipework and push-fit fittings in my own house - previous generation Hep2o and they've been there for years without a sniff of a problem.

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Let's hope they stay that way.

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Well I can rely on them not to corrode and pinhole like copper does.

I don't trust the information you present because it's largely someone else's experience, not your own, and very little of it forms any basis on which to form a judgment in either direction.

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I don't trust yours as it goes against the industrys collective experience.

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Please state the source of your industry statistics.

Water Systems said:

Softus said:

Your reasoning is not logical - there is more than one explanation for the tirade of subjective criticism levelled at plastic products.

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Yep there is - it fails a lot.

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Once again - please post a reference to the source of the objective data upon which your claim is based.

The people who doggedly insist that copper is the only 'proper' plumbing material appear to be very anxious - I surmise that they believe the growing use of plastic will make their skills less valuable.

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I don't see that. Failure of plastci has scared them off. Some have cottoned onto using comprerssion when using plastic. Many have gone to plsatic with comprerssion because copper is now expensive.

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How many? And what proportion were people who previously insisted that they would only ever use copper because it was the 'only material for a proper professional plumber'?

The fact is that there is no single product that suits all circumstances.

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Sense at last.

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Not "at last" - if you'd bothered to read any of the other topics covering this subject then you'd have seen that I write this time and time again.

There's a time and place for copper, and brass, and plastic, and soldered, and compression, and pushfit.

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I see no place for pushfit - too prone to failure.

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Well if you don't have the skills to install it then I suggest that you don't install it - just leave it to the professionals.