# Aquatherm opinions......



## uaplumber

http://www.aquathermpipe.com/

I am going to recommend that a school job that I just picked up use this.

They say that they are approved by Greenpeace so it should help with the Leed cert. that the school is are looking for.

I have taken a poly-fusion course through the union so I am confident that it will go in good.

What are you opinions of this product? (beside the old vs new debate like Pex) (go uponor!)


----------



## Proud Plumber

Looks expensive... How is it in price as opposed to traditional plastic systems?


----------



## uaplumber

It costs less than cpvc and copper. Johnny home owner can't do anything with it.

Irons are the big cost.


----------



## GREENPLUM

looks cool, how much for all the tools?


----------



## uaplumber

Hand held irons
3/8" to 1" $267.00
3/8" to 2" $341.00
1.5" to 4" $665.00

Bench machine 1.5" to 4" $10464.00
Welding Jig $6930.00
Butt welder 5" $7665.00


----------



## GREENPLUM

wow thats alot of bread, do you get to price the tools into the total?


----------



## uaplumber

Job is spec'd and price with copper. Savings in materials and labour pay for tools on the first job.


----------



## Scott K

I use this stuff fairly regularly. 

The medium Iron which does 3/8" (16 MM) to 2" (63 MM) fully outfitted with the heads to do both the fittings and the saddles is around $1500

IF you want to do anything above 2" (63 MM) you will need the big Iron, and you will need to buy the Jig which is a impact drill powered set of jaws that help you join/push the bigger pipe & fitings together (works for 63 MM to 125 MM i.e. 2" to 4"). This is when you are looking at big $$$ for tools - I think around $10,000+ after all is said and done, with I think the Jig costing around $7500 of that if I recall correctly. 

Aquatherm WILL last longer than Copper if properly installed. The pipe & fittings are cheaper than Copper. When you are set up, it installs faster than Copper too. Only issue IS you need to really plan out your fusions relative to the size of the Iron and tight places. In some cases you may need to do some, or a lot of pre-fab to avoid fusions in tight places or awkward areas. It SERIOUSLY puts the 'T' in Tradesmen, and I mean that. 

To do this stuff you really have to slow down and stop thinking about puking Copper in, but instead doing good work, and proper fusions.

Also, when pricing, you need to allow for more hours testing. Instead of a 200 PSI water pressure test for the inspector, you need to do the regular test for the inspector, PLUS you need to complete the Aquatherm warranty testing which is a series of 3 tests, to get their 6.5 Million Euro Insurance Policy (not warranty, Insurance policy). You must test areas or systems of pipe and record what areas/floors you are testing, and how many feet of what type of pipe are in each area. The test involves stressing the joints using differing pressures, which is supposed to show weak joints pretty quickly. Then you submit the completed, passed test form to Aquatherm. 

To get the full fire rating on this stuff you need to insulate it with the Aquatherm Reflectix insulation. With this insulation and the R-value of the pipe, if I recall correctly it means the pipe wall has around R-6.5 walls. This insulation is much, much nicer to work with than typical fiberglass, if you don't get a seperate insulation contractor. 

Aquatherm has 3 or 4 pipes you might use - the SDR 11 which is for cold water only (mainly green pipe with blue stripe), the SDR 7.4 which is for hot water or cold water (it has more fibers, and thicker wall to reduce expansion - green pipe with green striple), and the Climatherm (equal green and blue stripes) which is for heating/cooling/swimming pools. There is also another pipe that they just came out up here with that is called "lilac" which is purple and is used for Reclaimed water systems which you will find on these buildings. The lilac colour is used in Australia if I'm not mistaken, or is it Florida, where they run reclaimd water mains down the street and the purple colour readily identifies this pipe for it's reclaimed water purpose. All of the above pipes use the same fittings. 

For swimming pool (chlorine) applications they do offer some stainless adapters that you can fuse on as well. 

Keep in mind that when you use this stuff, if you size or pick your building PRV for more flow, you can get away with smaller pipe sizes. Where Copper is typically 4-5 feet per second, Aquatherm can do 8 feet per second, which if the PRV allows it, means you can reduce the pipe sizes further. Also, I am told that they are trying for more than 10 feet per second with this stuff for ceritification anyways. According to an Emco contact, they could probably do 16 feet per second with no problems but anything above that will suffer from pipe noise. You may want to run this smaller pipe thing by the engineer to resize the mains and such if it gets approved. 

They also have specific Aquatherm hangers that look like Sonic/Microfix clamps with green rubber instead of black rubber inserts. These hangers have spacers you can use if you think the pipes may need to slide a bit from expansion/contraction. 

The nice thing about this stuff - they don't use hardcore (or any) metals for stabilizers to help it last like PVC or CPVC. You don't off gas VOC's like you do when you're gluing PVC, CPVC, or soldering Copper so it's better that way. It's also highly recycelable unlike PVC and CPVC, and it's apparently extremely pure, has high chemical resistance, and won't leech into the pipe as readily as other plastics. When you fuse the joint, if done properly the pipe and fitting are now one, permanently. If you cut a properly fused joint you will have a difficult time finding the seem where they joined together.


The downsides to this pipe? Well if you have a leak, it's a PITA to cut a new fitting in, and you can't just repair/resolder it. Fusing in tight places sucks, especially bigger pipe. It's more difficult to make look nice - it's easy to cockeye a fusion into a fitting. Like I said above, it REALLY puts the 'T' back in tradesman. If you have to remember one thing out of everything I have said in this long winded post, it's you HAVE to, absolutely HAVE to resist the temptation to try and slam this stuff in. SLOW DOWN, think about it. You are not going to make $$$ more money by becoming a hero and puking this stuff in. Slow down, think and plan your fusions, work with the general contractor and other trades to make sure you have lots of space to complete your fusions as this stuff is NOT friendly for tight places. And overall do a good job. SLOW DOWN. 
You can use the most environmentally friendly pipe in the world but if the stuff doesn't last because you didn't do a good job then it requires repair or replacement which further hurts the environment. It's an overall committment, not just to make money but to make it better, and last longer.


----------



## uaplumber

Thanks for your thoughts Scott. I am really thinking about using this product alot. Not to worry though, we don't get rammy.


----------



## rickmccarthy

I dont have a ton of experience with this type of pipe but the experiance *I have had is that it is easy to have a leak. We were installing it in a college science building retrofit and when you are on a ladder over your head with an iron you need to have someone else up there with you so as soon as you take the pipe and fitting off the iron off you can press them squarely together. Not so bad when standing or when you have easy access but in the real world this pipe can be a real pain....really plan out your installation and look at where you are going to have to fuse this together and what position you will be in with the irons.


----------



## Scott K

What Rick says I think really shows that you need to slow down and think about your Fusions and take pride in your work with Aquatherm. 

I'll give you an example. We had a set of mains on the 4th floor of a LEED platinum building in North VAncouver that we are still working on. We had a guy, who we ended up laying off for various reasons, this being one o them, slam off a bunch of saddle fusions onto the main for take offs into each suite in record time that left me with some doubts in my mind. I couldn't believe how fast he did it and it was mainly because he wanted to get them done so he could bullsh*t with a bunch of other guys when we told him to slow down and take his time (and we all had the factory training from Aquatherm). He slammed off about 15 saddles in around an hour, which each saddle takes approximately 30 seconds each, fusion time on the Iron alone, not including set up time, holding time, etc.. Guess how many leaked? 8 out of 15. The fusions looked poor in general too with poor beads and somewhat misaligned to boot. In fact a few of them were so poor that they leaked with just head pressure. 

So I had to go in there and fix them myself. To fix it I had to cut out each saddle fusion and replace it with 2 couplings and a piece of pipe with a saddle I pre-fabbed on. No leaks after that. Was a PITA to do. Should have done it right the first time. 


Fusion saddles ARE the most difficult fusions to do properly, but if you take your time and plan it out you will have no problems. As far as fusions into fittings this stuff, if you follow the exact fusion times & procedures this stuff is extremely difficult to have leaks on.


----------



## Catlin987987

we did our first boiler room today, It went very nice, I will pressure test it tomorrow


----------



## Bayside500

Catlin987987 said:


> we did our first boiler room today, It went very nice, I will pressure test it tomorrow


can ya post some pics please ?


----------



## PrecisePlumbing

Scotty is on the mark. Excellent post. The purple therm is what we use for recycled water here in australia. I love aquatherm but when it's not done properly or the correct steps weren't taken leading up you will HATE your life haha


----------

