Fixing an underground leak - GIF

**nova_robotics** · Feb 8, 2025, 10:11 AM

I don't know what to think about those Pro Press fittings. It's a single o-ring seal just like a Shark Bite. I'm sure they're fine enough, but I feel about that the same way I feel about burying a Shark Bite under my concrete. It'll might even last 15-20 years before you have to do it again.

...that said I have reservations about burying copper too. If it's in contact with the soil it should not be metallic pipe. Particularly old houses that grounded their electrical systems to the plumbing. My house was built in 1994 and I had four pin-holes in the copper pipes between 2009 and 2014 when I just got fed up and ripped all the copper out and replaced it with PEX. That was caused by a faulty clothes dryer leaking current to ground through the plumbing system.

**Floradawg** · Feb 8, 2025, 02:59 PM

I do like PEX. My house is plumbed with it. It's very easy to work with.

**nova_robotics** · Feb 8, 2025, 04:57 PM

Originally Posted by Floradawg

I do like PEX. My house is plumbed with it. It's very easy to work with.

PEX is spectacular. Easily the best plumbing system. It's dead easy to install, it doesn't require heat, it's very fast to install lowering labour costs, the pipes have lower friction so you can generally go down one size and get the same pressure loss, it's flexible so it can go around turns, it's water hammer tolerant, it's freeze tolerant, it's not conductive and doesn't corrode, and it doesn't care if you have acidic ground water. Plus probably a bunch of other stuff that I'm forgetting. It blows the doors off of copper by every single measure, other than rats and mice can gnaw on it.

PVC is terrible, but plumbers love it because it makes straight lines. I had a plumber argue with me when I was doing over my house about installing PEX, over a job he wasn't even doing.