This same thing happened to me just yesterday with my shutoff valve under the sink. I had to replace a small leaking PTrap washer and I noticed small drip coming from the sharkbite shut off valve. I have also sworn by these and I know this was replaced right before we moved along with all the sinks in the house. As soon as I touched the valve it started a steady drip. Glad I was already down there and I just switched to compression and not push in.

There’s no such thing as permanent in any aspect of building.

I've had two people I know have flooding damage from Sharkbite type plumbing.

Not gonna ever use it.

Sanitary silicone and since You're at it just do everything. It'll save You from doing it again for few years.

Not sure why you haven't watched some YouTube vids by actual Pros. Caulk the whole thing, as comfortably as you can. Use a spatula for cement to clean the areas. Then a dust brush then alcohol. Simple bathroom sealant should hold for many years. Make sure your layering technique is good so it doesn't come out ugly and it actually bonds. And get that shit in there, finger method works fine or you can buy that thingy they sell at the hardware stores that's a slider like tool.

Too good to be true?

This is what I did last year. We added a first floor powder room in an old house and tapped into the central hot and cold water lines. The bathroom was the priority so we could have two toilets. But I was always planning on a more extensive plumbing redo to the main lines so I used shark bites and left a little extra pex so I can dial it in the future.

Too much flux can cause a soldered joint to eventually fail too.

Right? They will last a long long time in most cases. Sure, they might start leaking eventually but 90+% of the time that will probably take a decade or more to start happening. It's not worth the gamble of course but if you want to apply a more permanent fix at a later date they will work fine. Funny enough an outdoor hose bib is probably the best application for one since those take a beating and need to be replaced pretty often anyways and likely need to be replaced well before the sharkbite collet and o-ring wear out.

I'm liking them. Imagine if we could put up wall panels in houses like that instead of drywall.

This is exactly how I view them. When I had copper and was reworking things, it was a great way to cap things off without having to sweat a temp connection. Now that I am all pex, it's cheaper/just as easy to just crimp a shutoff on the end vs a sharkfit connection.

LOL who hurt you? Show us on the shut off valve where the plumber hurt you

Anything can fail if the right (wrong?) forces are applied. We had a couple of straight copper pipe runs fail in a crawl space, between sweated joints. Plumber's guess was because of movement in the pier-and-beam foundation.

If the metal is snapping in your hands, it sounds like a defective piece rather than a systemic design flaw.

We installed sharkbite fittings in our house several years ago because of unique hazards a torch would pose, and they haven't had any leaks.

I am not saying Sharkbite is bad, I'm just adding to your point with what I was told by a trusted plumber.

:-D to be fair 8 years is not that long compared to PEX pipes fitted in a 1990s house.

Well I'll be damned. That just has plastic plugs and can be popped on and off eh? Never seen that before.

Agreed. I think they're great for a temporary fix. Like we had a project we were working on, ran into hiccups, and it was getting late. Made a quick trip to home depot for a sharkbite so that we could turn the water back on and finish the next day.

Pretty soon we're going to be relocating some plumbing in our basement. It's going to require taking out what's there, some steps in the middle, then putting in new stuff. Sharkbites will be great for that middle time so we can still use the rest of the house's plumbing.

I don't think I'd ever put one in with the intention of leaving it there though.

Copper fails due to freezing, corrosion, or movement fatigue. To some extent you can control all these by using the right solder, cleaning off flux, insulating, strapping pipes properly at stub-outs, accommodating thermal expansion, damping water hammer, etc.

Most houses in the US are expected to be replaced after 70-100 years of use. And all in-wall utilities have a finite lifespan. So the critical question is how often they need to be replaced, and how much damage occurs during a failure. In my experience/opinion soldered copper is proven good for 50-100 years typical between repipes, and PEX is probably good for 30-50 years between repipes. Accelerated-aging studies using high temps show it should hold up better than older stuff like orangeburg or CPVC that have clear reliability problems. Unfortunately, modern connections like propress and sharkbite don’t truthfully have enough field service history to know if they’re 20 year fittings or 50 year fittings or 100 year fittings.

I mean that's just dumb. Sharkbites absolutely have their uses. They definitely aren't a permanent solution, but to call them a scam is just willful ignorance.

Sweated drain plumbing maybe. They're harder to get right, and harder to test.

Sharkbite is a scam and a hack and used by many licensed plumbers to steal money from you. I wouldn't even use them for an outdoor hose bib.

Have had sharkbite braided water heater hoses to my hot water tank going on 8 years now with no issues. Maybe one day I'll get around to making it "permanent" lol.

Bondo filler works pretty well on wood.

That’s pretty interesting with the electrical tools and connectors. Ultimately it depends on the type of work wanting to do. 1/2” drive is better for larger automotive bolts, such as lug nuts.

For the most part, hex (6 sided) sockets are better than 12-point sockets, as 12-point are more likely to strip a bolt, so I like seeing the hex in sets like this.