New England B.S. Thread

I just triple check with a multimeter before starting anything, then you can see the zaps

 

Same here. I'll take on electrical or plumbing work, but I'm neurotic with the tester before I touch any wires. I haven't done any gas piping work though, I'll leave that to the people who know black iron.

 

Ironically, one of the first licenses plumbers get is gas fitter.

 

Good resource and info. Thanks!

 

I hate black iron. I fought with the gas company when they installed my propane service to put in copper. I’d much rather have a solid copper line end to end than the black iron with all the fittings.
Beyond black iron though, I’ll sweat pipe all day. Not a fan of the press fit so much.

 

By press fit, do you mean the pex pipe connections?

 

Re: "Electrical -vs- Plumbing": Me too!!! Electrical: I can re-wire my house, the International Space Station, or an Aircraft Carrier: No arcing, no sparks, no weird humming: "No Problemo", Plumbing??? HA! Replace the toilet feed with a compression fitting or an o-ring cartridge on my Delta faucet: instant disaster! Niagara Falls or Lake Superior draining completely dry. Even the water company shutting it off at the street might not fix it.... It's not only unfair: it's embarrassing. Because then I have to call in Vincent "Cosmo" Gardenia ("Moon Struck") and pay him $500 an/hr to fix it and listen to his crap. Always starts with "you should leave this work to a licensed professional......"

 

No, I mean the ones you need an automated clamp tool to crimp the fittings onto the copper pipe.

 

Like these... it's definitely replacing sweating pipe in commercial jobs. It's cost prohibited tho. I'll stick with the old fashioned way for now.

https://www.supplyhouse.com/Milwauk...per-Press-Tool-Kit-with-1-2-to-2-Jaws-One-Key

 

Yep, those. I’ve had a few owners explicitly forbid Propress on their projects. Some have had bad experiences in the past apparently.

 

Our facilities guy at work is a licensed plumber and he loves Propress. The tool is expensive though.

 

My neighbor is a plumber and this is all they use now. He replaced a few fittings above my furnace with them. Wasn’t really sure how I felt about them when he did it because I had never seen them before. That was a few years ago.

 

When I had the propane tanks and lines installed for my whole house generator, that's what the guy used. That was on black iron and he said that while tool is expensive it saves a lot of time.

 

Neighbor said the same thing, saves a lot of time. For anyone that hasn’t seen them, these are some they did at my work.

 

I am a fan of sharkbite and pex, to be completely honest. I drink truly seltzers and like pex.

I'm sure on an industrial scale it would be different but for some schlub like me doing some quick, short DIY runs, it's fantastic.

 

Only problem I have with sharkbites and pex is it makes it quite obvious when something has been replaced. Not that there is an issue, but lets say one doesn't pull a permit for a repair - its a big red flag during a home inspection. 9 out of 10 prospective buyers don't care about all visible work being permitted, but that one person can be a very expensive headache (saw it first hand with my father in law when going to sell his house and someone started asking questions and queried all building permits that were pulled on that house - the building inspector decided to show up for a walk through and it got bad quickly).

 

Sheesh, talk about petty

 

That’s a dickhead move by the buyer and the building inspector.
Meanwhile after ready this thread last night I went to grab something out of the basement and noticed that my water heater is leaking.

 

When we had a new bathroom added in the basement last year, the plumber used pex and sharkbite fittings. That construction required a section of baseboard to be removed and new pipe placed in the bathroom for a smaller baseboard. Permits were pulled for the work, so it won't be a problem when we put the house on the market.