Plumbers: PEX or Crimp?

I recently inherited the task of maintaining another 20 properties in addition to my own. All are older homes, and I can safely assume that I will have a bevy of plumbing repairs and replacements to do over the next 20 years. While I can sweat copper pretty well, I do hate it and copper is getting stupid expensive. I am thinking that I might invest in some tools now to make my life easier in for the next few years. 

Option #1 is a crimp tool for copper. This allows me to re-use the copper I have with no more open flames or issues with partially-drained pipes. I love the idea of being able to lay out an entire run, and then seal it up. The downside is that tools start at about $1k, and go up to $4K. It would be a business investment amortized over time, so I am not too worried about that. Not sure why this man is not smiling ear to ear, he is not dealing with propane, be happy dude.  

Option #2 is move to PEX. Battery tools are about the same $, but manual crimpers are like $50. I love the idea of manifolds and flexible pipe that is easier to route, but not sure about the durability of PEX or transitioning from existing copper to PEX. 

If you had to deal with this, which route would appeal to you? 

Sharkbites make joining PEX to copper or PEX to PEX easy without crimping. They're more expensive than standard fittings or tees, but they seem to work pretty seamlessly in my experience.

Crimping pex together is so easy a plumber can do it.

Copper to pex is easier than getting my phone to not autocorrect the word "pex". 
sharkbites are the easy button, but a sweat adapter on the copper that the pex crimps onto is pretty standard. 
Running pex is way easier, even without considering the fittings. In a purely maintenance situation I don't think you'd often have to replace much actual piping, but something to consider. 
Id suggest moving to pex, but I have very little experience with copper in general, and none with those crimp fittings. 

Unless you are pursuing a plumber's license and commercial new work, I don't see a $4000 copper crimp tool paying for itself. 

20 houses?  If a house is springing several leaks per year, then it has a copper degradation problem, not a routine leak. Time for nearly full replacement- use PEX. 
Basic maintenance?  I'd be surprised if you saw more than 20 leaks per year. 
 

200 houses?  That would be different.

PEX is easy and well proven.   Excellent for the long term in residential.

In older houses in Pittsburgh, you will definitely need to know how to repair copper.  But a half dozen joints per month doesn't pay for the equipment.  Use misc Sharkbite, etc fittings.

The bigger deal is drain repairs.  Do you know how to work with cast iron?

You can find used ForceLogic Press tools for under $1000 on ebay. Usually a case of a homeowner who bought a tool then realized they don't need a $2000 tool sitting around. Talking with plumbers, they seem to like ProPress for new installs, but the one plumber I talked to said you've gotta be careful doing dry fitments or else you end up wasting fittings. Once and done. 

PEX for new stuff is nice. I run it everywhere that I'm NOT drinking the water regularly, but I also like copper to my kitchen sink. I bought a $350 Milwaukee ProPEX Expansion tool and have used it quite a bit during my bathroom remodel and some other projects. 

For anything that's easily accessible (not buried behind drywall) - Sharkbite is trustworthy enough to be the worth the lack of time and investment involved. 

SV reX said:

The bigger deal is drain repairs.  Do you know how to work with cast iron?

You mean rubber adapters and PVC?

I jest - not having worked with cast iron, isn't it just as simple as using adapters in order to not use cast iron?

Propress is holding out in commercial and institutional construction, but even that is heading towards PEX.

For a house, I would go PEX and not look back.

In reply to pheller :

I mean cutting rotted cast iron clean enough to be able to use rubber fittings and PVC. 
 

A frozen split cast iron drain line needs to be cut out cleanly before any repairs can be made. There are no 4" Sharkbites. 

The pro press fittings are ungodly expensive.  If money was no issue and I wanted 40 years of life, that would be the only reason I would go with pro press.  Pex is so much easier. Fittings are cheap, measurement should don't have to be exact. Pex is the way. Get a Pex crimping tool from Milwaukee though.  They are so much cheaper than the Milwaukee pro press tools. 

I use pex at home and we have a pro press deal at work. We are doing all process cooking water with the pro press but it's the same tool. If I were doing houses and not building the Biltmore House I would do pex, cheaper and easier. The pro press with copper sure does look classy though. 
 

I use Uponor PEX exclusively for the last 10 years. I bought the Milwaukee expansion tool and never looked back. The only downside is that you cannot buy the stuff at a local big box store, it's sold thru a dealer network of plumbing supply houses. I have one 25 minutes away if I need something in a hurry. If I'm doing a bigger job, I put an order together with Supply House and they ship it to me in 2 days. I will never touch copper again.

I know this isn't what you were asking, but I wonder if the reason you dislike soldering copper so much is that you're using a propane torch.  I switched to MAPP gas 20 years ago and never looked back. So much less time heating. Clean, flux, heat, solder, wipe, done.  I feel a lot more confident in the integrity of soldered joints and copper pipes, plus you avoid the "floppy" problem of PEX.. you get inherently straight and tidy lines with copper. (Assuming you measure and cut properly.)  HAVING SAID THAT, if I had to work in a crawlspace or other location with poor accessibility, I'd probably find soldering copper much less appealing. I've done three full houses- complete replacement of all the supply plumbing and it's not too hard. 

PEX is great.  Its easy to route and install. 

Plus you can freeze it solid with no breakage. (I know this from personal experience in the Houston deep freeze of Feb 2021 when we lost power for 4 days while the temp was below 10 degrees F..)

In reply to flat4_5spd :

"inherently straight and tidy lines.."

That's nice. But nobody actually cares in rental properties, and no one will pay extra for it. 
 

PEX has fewer joints. That's fewer potential failure points. 
 

PEX is MUCH faster to install. That's labor. That's money in the pocket of the OP. 
 

Materials are cheaper too. 

In reply to pinchvalve (Forum Supporter) :

The cost of crimping for you is not just the tools. You will also need to maintain a fairly large and expensive inventory of parts and fittings. 

Pro press is pretty but the seal is still an o-ring like Shark Bite fittings. I don't like either of those for long term installs because the o-ring can fail with age and movement.

dculberson said:

Pro press is pretty but the seal is still an o-ring like Shark Bite fittings. I don't like either of those for long term installs because the o-ring can fail with age and movement.

Aint that the truth?  Much prefer a proper threaded or soldered joint for anything I care about.  Rentals - whatever is cheap and fast.  

In reply to 93gsxturbo :

I've never seen an o-ring joint fail. I've seen lots and lots of threaded and soldered joints fail. 
 

That's mostly because they just haven't been around as long. But still...

dculberson said:

Pro press is pretty but the seal is still an o-ring like Shark Bite fittings. I don't like either of those for long term installs because the o-ring can fail with age and movement.

Define "long term"? 5 years? 15? 20?

I had 5 years on some sharkbite fittings that regularly froze up at the old house that were still going strong when we moved out, in fact they were doing better than the copper pipe they were connected to. Here at the new house are pieces on exterior copper of unknown age that are still holding up despite being fully exposed to the elements. 

I understand "I don't trust it", but why not?

I've soldered enough connections that I'll gladly spend a little more to not have to do it anymore. Especially with how easy modification is.

SV reX said:

In reply to 93gsxturbo :

I've never seen an o-ring joint fail. I've seen lots and lots of threaded and soldered joints fail. 
 

That's mostly because they just haven't been around as long. But still...

I guess from what though?  Thats like witnessing a lot of 6.0 Powerstokes blowing up and neglecting to mention they had 300k miles, $15k in deferred maintenance, and a tuner cranked to 11.

Anything can fail.  Its all about the proper item for the application. 

I'm not a plumber... at all.  I hate plumbing work, but I'm a cheapskate so I refuse to hire someone to do it.  When I bought my house in 2017 it was full of ancient copper with a few leaks.  I turned off the main valve and replaced all the supply plumbing in the whole house with PEX.  My neighbor works for Hilti so he let me borrow a crimper.  Took me (a complete amateur) just over a day for a one-bath house with a basement.  I felt like a mother berkeleying pro.  The only solder I used was to put an adapter on the supply after the main valve, but it could have just as easily been done with a sharkbite.

When I got a fridge with an ice maker/water dispenser, adding the supply was a 5-minute job.  Cut the pipe, sharkbite tee, done.  The only thing I use my MAPP torch for is heating up rusty exhaust bolts in the garage.

In reply to 93gsxturbo :

Copper almost always fails because of hard water, or PH acidity. Starts with pinholes in the joints.  Copper's life span on municipal systems is directly related to how they maintain the PH balance, and process the water for chemicals, minerals, etc.
 

Galvanized almost always fails because of rust buildup which first reduces flow, then leaks at threaded joints. 

These are not rare occurrences related to poor maintenance (like the 6.0).  They are routine lifespan issues.

PEX is not prone to either of these.

In cold regions, freezing can be the cause of many leaks.  PEX wins there too (it doesn't rupture when it freezes).

  PEX's weak point is UV degradation (which is rarely a problem for residential water pipes). PEX is estimated to have a lifespan of over 50 years, but has not been widely utilized long enough to verify.  In the past 20 years PEX market share in the US has increased from about 10% to nearly 70%.  
 

I've used it for over 25 years without issue.

The older more industrialized areas of the country (like the OP's Pittsburgh area) are slowest to change from "We've always done it that way".  But there is really no reason to default to copper now for residential water supply usage.  PEX is cheaper, faster, and just plain better.  Especially for 20 house's worth of repairs.

If an older home is suffering from multiple leaks developing in copper pipes, it's suffering from system degradation (not deferred maintenance).  It's time for larger scale replacement, and PEX is the solution for this.

I've never had a ProPress fitting fail that I know of, but we have had a few SharkBite (almost typed that ShartBite) fittings fail. These were professionally installed and there was no obvious flaws in installations, just started sweating past the O-rings. To be fair, as Paul says sweated copper can fail and we've had that happen too. We had a 1.5" copper supply line start spraying a fine mist at a sweated fitting. I don't know how old that was, but it was probably less than 50 years old. Likely less than 30. The building is 100+ years old but is very well maintained will all systems modernized on a rolling basis, there's no funky super old stuff in it that's infrastructure related. Unless you count the original freight elevator. Which is awesome.

When I had a re-plumbing to do at home, I used crimped Pex. I like it a lot. I can readily do sweated copper but it's so much slower and clunkier.

93gsxturbo said: Its all about the proper item for the application. 

I honestly can't think of any residential applications where copper is a better choice than PEX.