To Pex or Not To Pex

[Andrew Briggs]

Hi,

I wanted to get some feedback on a maintenance topic.  Last year I had pex plumbing installed under one of my rent houses.  The G.C. who installed it was not a certified plumber.  Fast forward 6 months I had a plumbing company come to the house for an unrelated issue, gas leak detection.  They saw the pex and said that the shark bite fasteners used to assemble the pex were not to code and not reliable.  They claim that when it gets cold the shark bite fasteners could "loosen" causing the pex to leak.  They offered to redo the pex with the official pex fasteners.  After several calls back to them, they never followed up with a quote...  

It's been a year now and we've gotten through one winter without any leaks or issues with the Shark Bite.  Does anybody else have experience with this?  Would you redo the pex or leave 'as is'?

Appreciate the insight.

Andy

[John Warren]

@Andrew Briggs I would leave it alone personally. It is fairly simple to change those fittings if you ever need to. Your GC actually used more expensive fittings to save himself time from what I know of Pex. I wish pex was code in Chicago, but the plumber's union will fight it as hard as they can.