My supply line was upgraded to PVC, it was PBT. The house is still PBT, but the supply line and about 6' inside the house is newer PVC.

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The big thing with sweat fittings are the pinhole leaks. They can occur from excessive flux, or from the fact that sweat fittings are just copper pipe stretched into a 90 or 45 or whatever. That means the material is not only weaker but exposed to more wear and tear from the water, as it has to more actively direct it. In cases with high water velocity, that means that the backside of 90s can be eaten away much quicker than the rest of the pipe. It's most common on the fitting immediately after pump.

I mean, all you have to do is google joint failure of copper pipe and see what type people are complaining about. And then extrapolate that most people STILL have soldered joints.

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Another way of looking at it is this:

I know more than 3 people. Probably 100 people, give or take.

Of the 100 people I know, 3 of them have had expensive plumbing problems.

Two were from using Sharkbite connectors.

One had PVC water lines in their home, installed by the builder.

Better?

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> .05% of 1,000,000

is rare as hen's teeth

>but it's usually on older pipes from the 1960s or older

so those are brass pipes though, not copper, right?

Do you not make any personal decisions in life without a team of scientists to hand you a study on it? Are you incapable of using your existing knowledge on materials science and physics to make an educated guess on something? Do you really need somebody to tell you that metal is stronger and lasts longer than rubber?

how is copper on copper a dissimilar metal? lol

Sharkbites actually work better with PEX than with copper. Especially near a shower or other closed areas prone to getting condensation on the pipe. The little stainless teeth bite nicely into PEX and the OD of PEX stays smooth against the O ring and can't abrade it. Moist air near a sharkbite on copper puts two dissililar metals in a weak electrolyte- the stainless and copper battery causing copper oxide buildup that can eventually ruin the O ring seal against the pipe or erode the copper until there is nothing solid to bite and the assembly leaks.

piss off unix man

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Sharkbites are garbage, but IMO pro press is legit. They hold well, and though I have seen them leak through improper installation, that is always a risk. I haven't seen enough old pro press fittings to really see how well the joints hold up over the decades, but I have seen enough failures in sweat fittings to appreciate the larger radius and thicker material of the pro press fittings. You can argue that failures in sweat fittings are due to improper hydraulic design, but excessive water velocity is almost an industry standard, as the math behind water sizing is very fudgy, if the installer even bothered in the first place. Also, pro press installations have considerably better water pressure. I wouldn't install pro press in my house, but only because I know how to sweat, and pro press fittings are expensive.

That being said, the best domestic water system is expansion pex, which is cheaper and easier than copper anyway, so if you have the opportunity, just go with that.

While yes everything eventually breaks down and leaks but there are pipes I've installed like cast iron and copper that will more than likely last longer than my career and maybe even my natural life.

I think this would be a serious problem if you only know 2 people.

Crimped PEX and shark bite are two completely different things. Just like how copper can be connected with both shark bites and soldering.

Copper isn’t a company you can sue. Manufacturers have QA areas that sample to make sure what they are putting out meets standard. Copper fails all the time, very likely due to the sheer amount of it in use, but unless you track it back to one manufacturing facility, you can’t sue anybody for it failing.

You wanna round up the townspeople and get a plumber purge going? Take it all the way to sharkbite HQ? Find those dastardly deadbeat deceiving defrauding dung flushers and give them all the pent up rage you're still holding on to or just wanna let it fester inside you until it turns into prostate cancer?

I’m with the dude, if “everyone knows it” there should be numbers to back it up. Everyone “knew” that asbestos was an amazing fire retardant material, and that lead worked fantastic in gasoline and paint.

That's entirely possible and a very good counterpoint.

Get him boyz!!!!

If you are referring to a scientific study of the failure rate of soldered copper vs sharkbite vs ________. I am not aware of any.

However there is at least one lawsuit against sharkbite's which suggests at least some folks have had issues with them. I know of no current or past lawsuits against copper. Remember to be problematic a device need not be scientifically compared to a "standard".