Review on 🦈 Flexible Potable Tubing - SharkBite U860W100 by Julio Montano

Background: I discovered that the hot water line under my bathroom had a stove leak and upon further investigation I found a cold water leak under my entryway. In Ventura County, California we have hard water and my house on the property has gone cheap. It was built 30 years ago on copper foundation plates. The plastic sheath they used to isolate the copper from the concrete was very thin and subsequently collapsed as the pipes expanded and contracted under the heat. This led to severe corrosion of the copper on the outside (especially in the hot water pipe) and due to the predominance of minerals in our hot water, the copper corroded on the inside. I knew this would be a problem when I bought the house as I lived in the neighborhood for a while. Many neighbors had similar problems and paid large sums of money to have pipes repaired or replaced. My Experience: I am an avid DIY enthusiast and work on almost all types of projects. Electrical, Plumbing, HVAC, Appliances etc. I have repaired and repaired many types of plumbing including copper, electroplating, ABS and PVC. I was new to PEX. What I did: I did a lot of research before purchasing and weighed all my options. I thought about paying a plumber to do it himself with copper and PEX. I chose PEX and wanted to build a collector system so that in the future I could easily update my bathrooms without shutting off the water supply throughout the house. My home is a 1550 square foot one story, 2 bath home. I decided to replace the 1" copper line where it enters the garage from the check valve outside and run it to a manifold next to the water heater. I split the 1" copper into a 'T' and reduced it to 3/4" copper for the water heater water supply and the cold water side of the manifold. I used 3/4" SharkBite PEX connectors to feed into the distributor for a bit of flexibility. I ran a 1/2" PEX to each device. I used red PEX for hot and blue PEX for cold. I wanted to reduce the number of fittings and connections in the system, but ended up using 1/2" PEX to use copper faucets. with new compression fittings to connect to each light fixture; I didn't like the idea of PEX sticking out of the walls. I did Stainless steel clamps used because the crimping tool is a bit smaller and fits tighter spaces.I chose 100ft PEX rolls so I could straight away remove any fastener with no connections along the way.Copper.With a little patience and forcing I could threading it through the drains and walls with a minimal drywall cut.I used 90 degree guides to protect the bends.Using spring washers at the joints was easy.It took me 53 hours of work in 4 days to complete the project (including the drywall repair) It would have been a little quicker but I had to cut a hole in part of the roof to access the manifold above the get kitchen sink. Conclusion: I am delighted with this product and how easy it is to install. I was able to renovate an entire house myself in just a few days for less than $1,000. The copper part alone cost me $300, so PEX is $700.