# Uponor, what I have to say about it...



## markb (Jun 11, 2009)

We got a job to renovate the heating and plumbing in a basement. 

Plumbing was fine. Great, a pleasure to do. No problems there. 

Heating was another story. All the heating pipes for the house were hanging far below the joists and needed to be raised into the joists. We also removed the old CI rads and recommended in-floor heating. The HO was happy. 

We used to use Kitec for our radiant systems, but now that it was history we looked for something new. Our wholesaler recommended Uponor. Said alot of sales-type stuff, and we fell for it.

The 1/2" infloor pipes were nice to work with, the 1/2" expanding tool took a little to get used to (so did trying to keep the plastic ring from slipping down the pipe), but we managed. 

We removed most of the old heating pipes (Iron) and were ready to replace with 1" Uponor this morning. 

We went to the wholesaler to pick up the material for the 1" this morning. First off, the bill was a big surprise, but I figured "ok, so I pay more. At least I save some time on the installation". I should have become skeptical when my sales-rep laughed about how all of these were returns from another job when they changed their mind about using the product. 

I don't want to make this post any longer than it has to be, but this pipe was the worst heating product to work with. Soo much effort and stress associated with the hand powered expansion and installation. Soo expensive. Very time consuming. I am strongly thinking about selling the pipe, fittings, and tools I had left over from this job. For sure I will never use the 1" ever again. 

Soo much for trying to save some time. What would have been one day of work with copper is turning into something twice as expensive and twice as time consuming. Uponor gets a failing grade in my book. Next time I'm just sticking with iron and copper. Reliable, durable, and trust-worthy. 

Your thoughts? Anyone else had the opportunity to work with 1" Uponor?


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## DUNBAR PLUMBING (Sep 11, 2008)

AWE DAMN! I can hear the skin of the internet burning deep beyond the soft fatty tissue with this post making it to the light of day! 


Sorry about your experience but you're doing the right thing talking about it. It's a healing process many won't bring themselves to do. 

Make damn sure you let your rep know, that you lost time on the job as a result.


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## markb (Jun 11, 2009)

Of course he will know. 

Maybe I was doing something horribly wrong, but I doubt it. That's why I put up this post. Wanting to see if anyone else has worked with it (esp. the larger sizes). I mean, how can someone possibly work with 2" Uponor? I don't understand. They have some battery powered expanders that might have helped, but those are over a thousand to buy. We really did just throw $3500 down the drain the last week on material and tools for Uponor. The web site looks great, the videos make it look easy, the catalog is very professional and complete. I just don't understand how it is soo difficult to work with. I would have rather replaced all of the heating pipes with iron if I knew this was what Uponor was really about. 

Believe it or not, at one point I called my wholesaler and asked if he could quickly deliver some 1" Sharkbites to use on the pipe. That way we could at least finish most of the job today. Unfortunately, the driver was out of town picking up some stuff. Too bad.

I have a small feeling all of their media is geared towards the engineers and architects. They see all the nice pictures and read about how great it is to have "lead-free" fittings, but don't realize that including this stuff on building plans is deadly for some people.


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## TheMaster (Jun 12, 2009)

Thats expansion tool is too much suga for a dime. Gimmie my coppa crimp rings and brass fittings so i can go to work now please


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## Nevada Plumber (Jan 3, 2009)

Using the hand expander for 1" pipe is a real pain. Do yourself a favor and get a power expander. I've done up to 1 1/2" with my power expander with no problems. Wirsbo has a learning curve to it compared to the other brands of PEX. I remember the first house I did with Wirsbo was slow as I was learning the tricks. After I learned the tricks, the other ones went fast.


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## Master Mark (Aug 14, 2009)

*one inch is hell...*

I have both the battery and air expander...

they both make short work out of any of it....


tha hand expander is really only for a few joints.
even doing 1/2 inch with that hand expander all day long
is an extreme workout.. 

and that was certainly almost a 
"manhood contest " with one inch..:blink:.

the biggest "trick" you need to learn is to keep your hands clean while you are working with 
the stuff, you cant be getting soldering flux all over your tools, oil on your hands or on the fittings... or they will all make the ring slide up the pipe..

the newer rings now come with a stopper insert and can only be put on the pipe one way... and they will not ride up the pipe...
the biggest drawback I have seen with the stuff, 
.....is the expence of the power tools.....


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## markb (Jun 11, 2009)

What do you guys find are the benefits from using Uponor vs. copper? Or iron? Or regular pex even? Do you find that it ever saves you time? Money? Stress? 

Do you find it more or less reliable? Does it last longer? Are service calls welcomed or dreaded? 

I want to get a good clear picture before making my decision on what kind of material to use on the next job.


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## Turd Burglar (Sep 26, 2009)

crimp pex, viega. FAST!:thumbsup:


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## bartnc37 (Feb 24, 2009)

That 1" with a hand expander is a bear. try it when its about 10 degrees out, the joints take hours to seal up. We used to use a heat gun on the joints when it was cold just so they would seal up. the 1/2 and 3/4 aren't as bad but i couldn't imagine trying to expand that 1 1/2" and 2".


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## Protech (Sep 22, 2008)

Uponor has the just about lowest UV rating of any pex pipe out there. Lowest chlorine protection too. It is mechanically stronger though.


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## Mike Jessome (Aug 7, 2008)

If 1" pex is costing you more then copper your getting ripped and it doesn't make sense to me why you would use black iron or copper because by the sound of how long its taking you to use pex you would be there for 5-10x longer with the other two


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## Titan Plumbing (Oct 8, 2009)

Master Mark said:


> I have both the battery and air expander...
> 
> they both make short work out of any of it....
> 
> ...


Yeah the battery tool is quite expensive. I got lucky, I guess. We did a small micro-brewery and ran it all in Uponor including the glycol system. Quite a bit of 1 1/2" material, the local manufacturer rep gave me a battery and air expander. :thumbup:

I've been using Wirzbo/Uponor for the last 6 years and have been extremely satisfied. It did take some getting used to, but now it's great.


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## markb (Jun 11, 2009)

Mike Jessome said:


> If 1" pex is costing you more then copper your getting ripped and it doesn't make sense to me why you would use black iron or copper because by the sound of how long its taking you to use pex you would be there for 5-10x longer with the other two


The main cost is our labour. We were working inside of very tight joists and the Uponor was very difficult to make look professional, and also too stressful when working in very tight conditions (5ft high basement with tight floor joists). I also don't like how you can't test fit the peices first to make sure they are right (especially when the pipe keeps curving on you while you work). Other material makes you slow down a bit, but at least you can work at a steady pace and know 100% how your piping will work and look. 

I don't think anyone understand how mad I am about Uponor. I made this post a few days ago and my blood still boils when I think about it. 

And worst of all, it all looks sloppy when finished. I have never seen a clean Uponor job ever. And when it doesn't look clean, how do you explain to your contractor or HO the bill when every pipe is curved and bending. Or when you fire up your boiler pump, all the pipes turn dark black. Nothing looks new. Nothing looks professional. Nothing works. And repairs are a nightmare! Let me start on those.

We had two iron 1" lines running from the second story to the basement, about two feet apart. With not enough room in the joist to use 1" female adapters and Uponor t's, we put a iron 90 on one side with a 1" male uponor adapter, and the other we threaded on a iron T with two male Uponor adapters on the sides. We just needed to cut a peice of Uponor to fill this space between the two adapters. We did it, a pain in the arse it was, but we managed. Well, the bloody carpenter accidentily cut the middle of the pipe with his sawzall. If it were copper, it would be easy to fix. If it were iron, two peices and a union would fix it for sure. If it were pex, I would use a cupling, or even cut the copper rings off with a hacksaw and install a new peice. This uponor stuff took all afternoon!! I didn't want to cut the ring, beacuse the pipe hugs the fitting too much and I can risk cutting into this fitting. I decided to put in a cupling. What a stressful fight it was!!and it looked like garbage after anyways. Stressful to install, stressful to repair, and now stressful to think about. 

Am I just crazy, or does no one else get mad at this product?? 

By the way RSP, Zurnpex is looking good. I'm really missing Kitec and this new stuff looks promising. Going in on Tuseday to ask my wholesaler about it... after I talk to him about Uponor.

BTW, if anyone is still reading this or cares, I added cheater pipes onto my expanding tool to finish the rest of the job. Did I ever look lame infront of the other trades using two foot cheater pipes trying to expand a small plastic pipe. 

Maybe I should move to Chicago...


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## ckoch407 (Sep 30, 2009)

Protech said:


> Uponor has the just about lowest UV rating of any pex pipe out there. Lowest chlorine protection too. It is mechanically stronger though.


They offer a 25 Year Warranty that actually covers against property damage if it fails within the period allowed. So IMO chlorine rating means nothing. If chlorine were that big of problem you should be more concerned for your personal health rather than the life of your pipe.You may want to consider a conditioner at that point for health reasons. Also, would you leave B PEX exposed to UV if it were not coated with the UV stuff? I wouldnt so the UV and chlorine ratings mean nothing to me. 

Benefits for HO: Warranty, Peace of Mind. Better flow due to expansion of pipe and I.D. of fittings. Less fittings = less chance of failure. It is a premium product that you should charge a premium price for. 

Benefits to contractor: Higher margin if you sell it as premium product. Use less fittings once you get used to the system and in my experience less labor after we reached the front of the learning curve, which also = higher margin. Pipe easier to work with than B PEX. If it fails their warranty supersedes your insurance liability.


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## Scott K (Oct 12, 2008)

I think you need more experience with the product. Only then will you learn some of the in's and out's of how to make it work a little better.

First off - Price of the Tool.

For the Price of a Manual Wirsbo Tool that does 1/2", 3/4" and 1", I can barely afford 1/2" and 3/4" one hand crimpers. Now yes, 1" Wirsbo is a bit of work, hell even 3/4" is a lot of work with 7-8 expansions per joint. But the point of using Wirsbo, and Pex in general IS also to reduce the number of fittings required which helps reduce pressure drop. Also, related to the tool - the Wirsbo Tool is in my opinion having done a lot of crimp pex, and a lot of wirsbo, generally pretty forgiving in tight places because you can often pump up the joint outside of where you need it and then put it in place and onto the fitting if you plan things well. With crimp pex, you often need other crimping tools like confined space crimpers to make this work as sometimes the one hand or 2 hand tools don't work. 

Secondly - Price of the Pipe/fittings.

Make no bones about it, this is one of the pricier Pex's out there. But in my opinion it IS the best. The fitting system is pretty fast, and it's also VERY strong if done right. There are several tricks you might want to follow when you're doing it. 

1) Make sure the rings are warm. If they are warm, they close (cure) faster. As a precaution, it's not a bad idea to hit them with a heat gun afterwards if you want to test right away but it's not always neccessary if you give them half an hour or so and the rings were warm (i.e. you kept them in your pocket or in a warm environment, not on a cold site or in the truck overnight).

2) When you complete the expansion process, pull the tool out and quickly stick your finger in to feel for grooves before popping in the fitting. Any grooves, and you will need to re-expand it. 



You should support this pipe every 32" which is code. How you uncoil it can also play a factor in how it looks. 

Wirsbo has one of the best O2 barriers for their HePex. It appears to be to be built into the pipe wall itself, unlike many ohter O2 barrier Pex's which have their O2 barrier on the outside, which can often suffer from expansion and contraction noises in certain applications (e.g. underfloor staple up). 

In a book I read recently, the author talks about his visit to the Wirsbo factory where they show a pipe that was pumped up to 750 PSI and the pipe blew before the fitting did. He also talks about how they did this stretch test where they try and yank a Wirsbo fitting apart. Well basically the pipe looked like a wet noodle and it didn't get yanked apart. Better yet, they heated the pipe with a heat gun and it went right back to it's original shape. This is one of the advantages of a good quality (more costly) Pex-A like Wirsbo is the flexibility, and the flexibiliy insurance offered as well. That being if you kink it, you can heat it with a heat gun and it will reform itself. What happens if you kink a Pex-B or Pex-C?

Also, another Pex-A - the Rehau Pex ("RauPex) which we use for a lot of concrete high mass radiant floor systems has the only fitting system that is approved in our area to be encased in concrete - the everloc system. You CAN use this on Wirsbo if you need to as they are both Pex-A's. I don't think a Pex-B or C manufacturer would work with the Wirsbo Rings or the Rehau Everloc system.

Also, last but not least, did you know that you can repair a leaky hose with Wirsbo fittings? I sh*t you not.

We were doing some testing as apprentices a few years back on some water lines in a condo project, and the boss was taking a while to get us hose repair couplings, so I figured out a way to use a normal Wirsbo fitting & ring to repair your average rubber hose, and let me tell you it was superior in every way to the typical repair coupling with gear clamp that you buy. First off, it was very strong - you could put 200 pounds into the hose and it'd hold. Secondly, it didn't get caught on things if you dragged the hose like a gear clamp would. It was a win-win.


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## uaplumber (Jun 16, 2008)

Take the trip to Apple Valley, Minnesota. It'll make ya a believer.


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## Protech (Sep 22, 2008)

Are you sure that your guys are not leaving the pipe out in the sun before it is installed? There are times when the city water supply can go over the 4ppm chlorine rating of the pex pipe. I have personally measured the water at clients house with chlorine concentrations over 4ppm, it is especially high early in the morning.

I'm not knocking uponor. You just asked about the down sides and I gave them to you.



ckoch407 said:


> They offer a 25 Year Warranty that actually covers against property damage if it fails within the period allowed. So IMO chlorine rating means nothing. If chlorine were that big of problem you should be more concerned for your personal health rather than the life of your pipe.You may want to consider a conditioner at that point for health reasons. Also, would you leave B PEX exposed to UV if it were not coated with the UV stuff? I wouldnt so the UV and chlorine ratings mean nothing to me.
> 
> Benefits for HO: Warranty, Peace of Mind. Better flow due to expansion of pipe and I.D. of fittings. Less fittings = less chance of failure. It is a premium product that you should charge a premium price for.
> 
> Benefits to contractor: Higher margin if you sell it as premium product. Use less fittings once you get used to the system and in my experience less labor after we reached the front of the learning curve, which also = higher margin. Pipe easier to work with than B PEX. If it fails their warranty supersedes your insurance liability.


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## 22rifle (Jun 14, 2008)

markb, your experience is vastly different than mine. I am still missing part of the puzzle here.


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## para1 (Jun 17, 2008)

Trash that spagetti crap and get back to running pipe like a man!!:yes:

*I'm just sayin......*


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## markb (Jun 11, 2009)

I really did thing I was missing something too. Some magical part of this "puzzle". I have become a little more comfortable with it, but still no better than any other pipes. On our third day working with the 1" pipes. Already started with it, need to finish with it. No point in spending a grand on the mechanical expander. Still suffering. Large house with tons of old rads. Can't wait to get to the boiler and start working with copper.

If I can remember my camera I will post pics. 

Brought up my problems with Uponor...no response so far.


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## markb (Jun 11, 2009)

Finished the job this morning.

My final verdict is as follows, for anyone who cares to read.

- 1" pipe and the hand expander is not recommended. How anyone can do 1 1/4", I don't understand.

- I recommend buying the straight lengths for 1" rather than breaking your balls with a 300ft roll. 

- Unfortunately, our wholesaler do not normally carry 1" fittings. Do order more than you need or you will find yourself working a lot of half days waiting for fittings to get delivered.

- 1/2 is a dream to work with (as long as you don't want it to keep it's shape too much) and 3/4" is workable. 

- Overall a interesting pipe to work with. Definitely a high-end product and that should be reflected in the bill. The final product is reliable, you can go home and sleep in peace knowing that there are no leaks once you are gone.


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