Kitchen faucet lines.

[aaroncgi]

We're going to be installing a new kitchen faucet, sink, as well as an undercounter water filter. Now, I installed new bathroom faucets in the home about eight years ago and distinctly remember not having to buy anything that wasn't included with the faucets. As I recall, the gray PB lines under the counter just screwed right into the new faucet.

I've discovered that kitchen faucets nowadays come with their own flexible lines permanently attached inside the neck of the faucet, with a female 3/8" compression nut attached. These are meant to screw into your shutoff valves under the sink. Well like our bathroom, our kitchen features solid PB lines with the same gender fitting as the faucet on the end, so that won't work, even if the line were short enough to mate. There are shutoffs under the sink for both hot and cold, but they are crimped or glued into both the line coming up through the floor and going to the faucet. They have no disconnectable or threaded parts anywhere. There's a tee in the hot water line just above the hot water shutoff, for the dishwasher, also crimped or glued. We'll need to add a tee in the cold water line as well, for our filter.

Eventually (hopefully this year) we're going to have the whole house repiped with PEX, but that's probably more towards the end of the year. What's our best solution to get this new faucet working in the meantime? Obviously the PB faucet section will need to be cut and a fitting attached to connect with the faucet's input hoses. But do we leave the crimped in shuttoff valves and Tee, or is there a way to replace these with real shutoffs and Tees? I should also note that there's only about 2" between the hole in the floor of the cabinet and the bottom of the shuttoffs.

The new faucet looks SO simple to install that I would love to do this myself, but am thinking of just calling in the plumber. All the drain piping will have to be redone as well, since we are moving from a double basin to 4" deeper single basin sink.


Cheers!

[DaleM]

Unless you have the crimp tool for the rings on the PB and Pex tubing this job is better left to a plumber that does. Standard SS hose clamps will not apply enough pressure to properly seal the fittings and I wouldn't trust the slip fit fittings that are available unless it is a "no choice" situation. BUT if your were to do it yourself first you crimp in Pex to PB adapters then crimp on Pex to 3/8" compression valves. The new faucet would attach directly to the new valves.

[aaroncgi]

Dale,

Thanks for the response. I basically came to the same conclusion you presented. I was able to find the Pex to PB adapters at Home Depot, but don't have any PEX crimpers. I'm currently researching whether I want to fork out the money for the crimpers to handle it myself. It seems $90+ is common. I expect I may do some plumbing in the future, but probably not at this house, so it could be years down the road. Our local plumber has very reasonable rates, so can't imagine him doing what you suggest would cost us more than maybe $120, if that.

If we were planning to just limp along with the PB lines and I just needed to change ends of lines for various fixtures, I would more strongly lean towards learning and getting the tools to do it all myself. But as we're planning to have the entire house redone later this year, seems like there won't be much for us to do after that. I suppose if I learn, I could redo the whole house myself and save a bunch of money, but I've already got way too many projects as it is....

[UmpJJ]

If you don't want to lay out money to BUY a crimper, try some local RENTAL places - you'll probably find just what you need at 1/10th the cost.

UmpJJ

[Steve S.]

Or buy the pex pocket crimper that Mark sells on this site for about $40. I've done all my own plumbing work using the pocket crimper...installed new kitchen faucet and replaced all plastic Qest shutoff valves with brass ones(kitchen and bathroom) and used pex-to-PB fittings. I think with the tees there are only peX and no peX-PB combinations. I thought the pocket crimper may be a pain to use, but I was able to access every crimp ring no problem...some manual dexterity is needed to hold both halves of the crimper tool around the ring while squeezing the vise-grips at the same time, but after awhile it gets easier .

[UmpJJ]

Menards has a pex crimper on sale this week for $59.

UmpJJ

[aaroncgi]

Thanks for all the thoughts. I hadn't really considered renting, but I suppose that's an option. I spoke with our plumber yesterday, and he'll be stopping by later this week to give an estimate for what we need done. No Menards in this area, but it looks like the $59 crimper is for 1/2" and 3/4" anyway. I need 3/8".

[Greg]

Mark's pocket crimper does 3/8. I have one and it does work, a little slow but if you only have a few crimps to do well worth the $40.

Greg

[mdnagel]

My brains are a bit fried right now (I'm also working up a plan to re-plumb w/PEX, among several other projects...), but I ran into a screwy problem when I went to do my bathroom sink faucets. My episode might be similar to yours...

I have CPVC pipe, not PB, though I also have supply lines with non-replaceable shutoff valves (push-pull plastic things) that connect directly to the water line. I wasn't wanting to mess around with cutting the existing water lines, so I went with a cobble job...

It took a bit of searching, but I found an adapter that I screwed into the end of the existing supply line that then allowed me to connect up to the faucet's supply lines. You might need to add a hose or something, but you should be able to get things connected without having to mess with (cut) the PB.

For what it's worth, I had a repair on a toilet and one of those chintzy plastic shutoff valves decided to start leaking (my work was fine)- grr*! Ended up using a sharkbite fitting. To-date this fitting is doing fine: they make me nervous. What I do like about these things is that they swivel: used a straight valve and you can swivel it for easy handling; it also looks pretty clean * Main shutoff valve won't close completely (another reason why I'm stepping up my timeline for replacing all the plumbing), requiring me to run out to the pump house and shut down the pump (and then drain many gallons of water); took a couple of these cycles before I got things resolved.

[Greg]

So you see first hand why I do not recommend Plastic body valves, Only brass or stainless Ball or Gate valves.

Greg

[JD]

>>features solid PB lines with the same gender fitting as the faucet<<

Maybe I am not seeing this right, but most PB fittings I have worked with were 1/2 pipe thread. Wouldn't a 1/2" fip to 3/8" comp supply line make this connection?

[mdnagel]

I looked it up and this is what I'd used:

http://www.lowes.com/pd_27335-104-A-124 ... ompression

[aaroncgi]

>>features solid PB lines with the same gender fitting as the faucet<<

Maybe I am not seeing this right, but most PB fittings I have worked with were 1/2 pipe thread. Wouldn't a 1/2" fip to 3/8" comp supply line make this connection?

Yes, an adapter would technically work to connect the supply line to the faucet line. However, I don't think in practice it's quite that simple. The supply lines are very ridgid - they do not bend. The fittings on the supply lines are directly underneath the faucet, as in a couple inches under the countertop. The new faucet has flexible braided lines, but certainly they're not flexible enough to meet up with the old supply lines, even if you could get an adapter in the limited space. I suppose if you could find a 90 degree adapter that might work, but seems cobbled together to me. If it were just for a few days or week ok, but we're probably not going to be having the re-pipe job done until mid-late summer.

I had a nice 30 minute chat with the plumber last weekend about this issue as well as the re-pipe and planned bathroom remodels. His cost to get the kitchen sink redone (including the drain) is only around $130+parts, which seems well worth it to us. And some of the work (such as replacing the PB dishwasher T and line) would need to be done in the future anyway. He also has super reasonable prices for the re-pipe job, plus replacing both our tub/showers and their fixtures.