PEX pipe and fittings
Starcraft Antigua 2005, Water manifold made of PEX and those one-time crimp hose clamps leak. See pics below. the black plastic PEX "T" somehow cracked on a diagonal across the intersection and stre...
Forum Discussion
Charlie D. wrote:1995brave wrote:
My friend picked up the Flare-it fittings from the local RV Parts store, they even gave him about 6 inches of tubing for free. The ones in the link are from PPLMotorhomes.
I would not use those on PEX. PEX is a harder material and I would not trust those.
Apparently you have no experience with Flair-it fittings. The Flair-it fittings were actually designed to be used only with PEX. The Flair-it fittings are a hard plastic. PEX is softer and is made from cross linked polyethylene.
My trailer was manufactured using PEX, with 95% of the fittings being Flair-it. I continued to use Flair-it fittings and more of the exact same brand PEX tubing when making mods to the plumbing.
The only Flair-it fitting i have ever had a problem with started to disolve. It was an adapter connected to a steel nipple threaded into the water heater inlet. There was some type of chemical reaction between the steel, rust and plastic that was causing the plastic to dissolve and the fitting started to drip. I replaced the Flair-it fitting with another Flair-it fitting and replaced the steel nipple with brass. After 10 years the only other leak was the toilet flush valve that went bad. The brass nipple and Flair-it are doing fine.
Flair-it fittings can get expensive but are extremely easy to use. You don't have to worry about crimping tools, bands, improper crimps that leak and enough room to use a crimping tool.
