Review on Viega 50243 2 Inch PureFlow Manabloc by Eric Garron

This product was one of the best decisions I made when renovating my home. No more flushing the toilet and losing pressure or scalding hot showers. No more joints as weak points in the subsurface. The only valves are the diverter valve and then straight to the shower/tub/sink/toilet/or elsewhere. Since PEX offers much better expansion capability at low temperatures and there are no joints under the house, leaks are extremely unlikely. That's great, because here in the mountains the temperatures reach negative values. Do not worry! One caveat: be extremely careful when connecting water, as well as a water heater, to the manifold. Metal and plastic fittings don't do well if you're not careful. You can easily twist and ruin the distributor. Double and triple check when you start threading. EDIT - 1 year later: There was a severe winter in the North Carolina mountains that included some frozen underground pipes. There are no problems with the manblock at all. Freezing pipes didn't hurt as there were no joints under the house. It took me a while to get used to flushing the toilet while someone was in the shower. I love my system! It was also great to be able to turn off and drain the two outside taps for the winter.