Shark Bites/Gator Bites to PEX (2 Viewers)

[scottm]

Read about Shark Bites here on Mud, saved me some time and work. There's a little side load on the fitting, not ideal, but it's not leaking. No instructions came with the fitting, but I checked the manufacture's website Elkhart Products Corporation and saw I needed to use the tube liner with PEX. That restricts the flow some, but it looks like no smaller ID than the frost-free faucet I was replacing. I had to cut the PEX off the old faucet, bought a longer faucet to make up the missing length.

 

[-Spike-]

I suspect most pex applications have a side load, but if you wanted you could secure the pex to the wood.

 

[Trollhole]

Read about Shark Bites here on Mud, saved me some time and work. There's a little side load on the fitting, not ideal, but it's not leaking. No instructions came with the fitting, but I checked the manufacture's website Elkhart Products Corporation and saw I needed to use the tube liner with PEX. That restricts the flow some, but it looks like no smaller ID than the frost-free faucet I was replacing. I had to cut the PEX off the old faucet, bought a longer faucet to make up the missing length.

Is that pex or Polybutlyene? If it's gray it's polybutlylene. The pex I have seen is white or blue/red.

 

[scottm]

Maybe poyb then. Plastic tubing. At work I run a lot of polyethylene and nylon tubing with very similar push-lock fittings from Camozzi, SMC, Parker, and we don't use sleeves. This stuff seemed pretty solid, but I used the sleeve to be safe. A water leak in my basement is a bigger concern than an air leak on a factory floor.

 

[Toyo FJ40]

The insert helps stop the tubing from distorting in hot water applications but I would still use it, it's less restrictive than the standard insert fitting. Just make sure you anchor the faucet. Any rotation on that shark bite will cause it to fail. Looks like polybutlylene to me which is a slightly different inside size than pex.

 

[jjbodean1970]

i love shark bites

 

[haystax]

That is poly-b not PEX - should say right on the tubing to confirm. That stuff is not as forgiving as PEX and was outlawed in many places. May want to strap it down and make sure water hammer is at a minimum.

Good luck.

 

[scottm]

That is poly-b not PEX - should say right on the tubing to confirm. That stuff is not as forgiving as PEX and was outlawed in many places. May want to strap it down and make sure water hammer is at a minimum.

Good luck.

Thanks for the heads-up. I'd like to replumb the whole house in something easier to work with, kind of a big project though. I've had no water hammers at all ever, so I guess it was installed correctly or with luck. My sprinkler plumbing does get thrashed around when I turn it on first time in the Spring, but it's all PVC from the meter and seems a bit oversized.