PEX connections

[rookie35]

I was watching an episode of this old house not too long ago and saw a tool that will save money. It allows you to use your pex pipe with pex connectors, but eliminates the crimp ring. You simply cut off a small end piece of the pex pipe and the tool enlarges the inside diameter. After it makes it bigger you just slip it over the pex and push the connector on the pipe and then slide the cut piece of pex over where the crimp would go. The piece will shrink back down and tighten the seal. No more buying the rings.

[JD]

This is called the Expansion connection or Wirsbo (now owned by Uponor) Sytem. They do use a pex expansion ring which looks like the pex pipe, but is actually thicker. Still the rings are cheap at about 15 cents each.

The expense comes in the tools. A cheap expansion tool is $200, with the different sized expansion heads (1/2" 3/4" 1" etc.) costing about $50 each, about the same price as my one fits all clamp tool mentioned in my previous reply. There is a popular pro model by Milwalkee that is $400 that does not require different sized heads for different pipe.

Again, I think crimp, clamp or expansion connections are all reliable connections. I personally like the stainless steel clamp method because the tool is designed for one hand operation and the tool is less than half the size of a standard crimp tool allowing it to fit into tight spaces. There is a small manual crimper for crimp that is exactly like the old Poly pipe crimper, where you just screw down the device till the ring is tight, but in a tool comparison, there is no comparison. You will not get the consistent calibrated tension with this type of tool and you will have a much higher risk of failure.

JMO