Any plumbers use it? In the past I have always used soldered copper fittings but a few friends wax lyrical over the plastic push fit stuff.

I don’t know why I don’t want to use it, but I don’t! Not sure why because we use loads of push fit stuff at work for pneumatic assemblies.

I used to use it at work as well. 5mm pushfit connectors that can are designed for over 180psi with no inserts? I’m quite happy using it at home, I just check I put it together properly. Resistant to freezing as well, bonus. I’ve had one leak due to freezing and it was a washing machine tap isolator that was compression fitted to the plastic pipe, and it was the tap itself that started leaking, not the compression fittings.

P.S I am not a plumber so my opinion counts for little 🙂

Proper John Guest fittings are great, they really work well. I would avoid the cheap copies on ebay, I had a couple fail at only 60PSI.

I’ve always used JG speedfit. First lot have been in 20 years, no issues (I know the guy who bought the house off us).

I’m not a plumber.

Our very old house is covered in JG speedfit. Our old school plumber swears by them.

I have the same reaction as you to it OP. I don’t really know why. Irrational I guess

Just done an entire central heating system in JG Speedfit, under the floor at least. Copper where it’s visible, e.g. radiator tails, supply & return from boiler. The difference between lifting god knows how many floorboards (and therefore carpets) to maneouvre rigid copper pipe vs feeding plastic pipe in a hole at one end of the house to another at the other end probably works out to a full day less.

I put a lot of outside pipework round a garden using plastic push fit. Never let me down and even if if did freeze the pipes never burst.

I’d happily use Tectite copper push-fits again. Very impressed with them.
The company I work for manufacture pneumatic pifs, ours will do 18 bar, they’ll usually burst about 50-60. Inconsistencies in tube quality are usually where failures occur.

built the house entirely with Hep20 (except within range of the boiler where you need to revert to copper, and tails for rads as copper looks better)

Not had a single failure. 9yrs in. Its a stronger system than speedfit although demounting is more difficult, and obviously more expensive.

Our last house, a early Victorian, was completely re-plumbed by an old school plumber, plastic (Hep I think) under floors, copper when in view. He recommended it as it is so much easier to put into an old house but said most importantly it flexs with the old floors, timbers etc.. We know the new owners, and never a problem in the 15 years.

The John Guest stuff allowed me to refit the bath the ‘correct way round’ when we were re-furbing the bathroom (wrong way in a new build – shower over ‘sloped end’, not taps. Just made sure I cut the copper pipes properly, and kept the edge smooth.

Not a plumber.

Always used it when I was plumbing.
JG Speeddit assembled properly with the right inserts is bombproof.
Never on display though, that’s just for the cowboys and student digs DIY landlords 😂

Great stuff, especially when refurbing.
Good very recent example of it’s capabilities is my mechanical guys on my current job using a big long length of it and a few fittings from the site tap to then pressurise the whole system at some stupid bar of pressure for a whole weekend. Didn’t drop any pressure or leak.

Thanks for all of the comments, very similar positive experiences to the people I have spoken to. I think I’ll give it a go but stick with the JG stuff.

Just make sure you use the inserts where needed.

I used some recently & didn’t realise that you needed the inserts until talking to a friend about what I was planning to do. He does quite a bit of DIY & the first thing he said was ‘make sure you use the right inserts…’

The only copper pipe in the whole of my new build house is about a six inch tail going to each tap, the rest is plastic push fit.
The builders we use for all our refurb work only ever use plastic these days – copper pipe is stupidly expensive.

Copper. Do the job properly. And by copper I mean soldered not push fit or compression or pressfit.
If you are doing it to make money then plastic is about the only way in housing.

Tom – why the anti plastic stance?
Personally I prefer a crimp plastic system but nothing wrong with push fit. And I’d sooner crimp on copper than solder. I’ve yet to have a failed joint on copper press fit in 10 years.

I asked the chap who fitted my centralheting system what he would use in his own house. Soldered copper was the answer. We ended up using a mix tho as getting copper to some of the rads was tricky

Not a plumber but – don’t underestimate the benefits of the flexibility of plastic pipework. When I wanted to put a tap in the garage I worked out that the pipework would require 7 elbows if I used copper, but using plastic pipe I could run the whole thing with no joints except the tee from the existing pipe and the tap. Surely that has to be better and more reliable? Similarly when adding a new radiator in an impossible location I was able to thread through plastic pipe rather than have multiple joins/elbows. And when we’ve had plumbers in they’ve always used push-fit and plastic pipe in difficult-to-access locations. Never had a problem with any of it.

We seem to equate time difficulty and cost of doing something with quality. Of course you could just look at those and put it down to poor design.

How about the environmental aspect. Copper is one of the very few fully recyclable materials. Can’t imagine any of the plumbing plastics used are great on that front. I know they should be in place for 20+ years, but still have to be disposed of at some point.

Whatever you use, take care to plan and fit it properly according to instructions. Escape of water claims cost something like £3m a day in the UK, mostly caused by improperly specced systems, bodges by contractors taking shortcuts on installation, ignoring design to save time and money, and just not enough care taken on pipe junctions, whether it’s push fit or a final half turn on a copper compression fitting.

I am not a plumber.
Did our entire bathroom refurb (bath, sink, cistern, shower) in push fit plastic. It’s excellent. Really easy to use, and really easy to undo when you get something wrong. And as someone said above flexiblity is a real bonus.
Maybe I would use copper if I was proffesional but for us amatuers it’s fantastic.

Its great and very easy to use, but how long do you think all the rubber seals will last until they start to perish and leak? 20 years?, 30 years?

trailwagger

Member

Its great and very easy to use, but how long do you think all the rubber seals will last until they start to perish and leak? 20 years?, 30 years?

Dunno but John Guest stuff is guaranteed for 50 years

I’ve done a whole house (5 bed 4 bath) in plastic, except where the boiler and cylinder is which is all solder copper. There’s loads of types of plastic, some very good some not quite so much, my order of prefernce;

Hep20
JG
Then the grey stuff if stuck.

Always use the correct inserts – i.e. JG with JG, or Hep with Hep.

I did find that getting a good fit with copper on JG stuff was hit an miss once put under pressure, but after a bit of fiddling it was fine.

There’s loads of old school that bemoan plastic with various horror stories, but it’s like everything, if you do it well (proper*) it will be fine. Also running copper is not always practical and the least amount of elbows in the system the better to avoid pressure issues.

*Clean cut pipe (flat surface), no burs, no swarf and correctly pushed in and tightened (if JG).

Some of mine is 10 years old and no probs.

speedfit here too, I used to faff about trying to get compression fittings tight enough / pfte tape etc… now it literally is just push it on. I’ve done 2 bathrooms so far. And definitely agree it is super useful for threading under boards for minimal disruption.

Copper. Do the job properly. And by copper I mean soldered

Why ?

Loads of people say that as an instant reaction to any mention of plastic.
But I’ve not yet heard a decent reason behind the statement.

used pretty much all options in various of our houses and business properties, and probably had more leaky compression fit fixtures on copper pipe, than I’ve had issues with plastic. Same as most above, only ever used JG Speedfit though. I definitely get a better post job satisfaction having run copper – there’s something about doing all the soldering, etc that makes it feel like more of an accomplishment. But when it’s a pain in the t#ts access job (like squeazing in an additonal handwash sink into an already small commercial kitchen), plastic is a saviour. Also had a few issues on plastic to copper push fits connectors, but copper cleaned down properly and refitted, all is (still) good. Do yourself a favour and get the proper plastic pipe cutter though, perfectly square cuts everytime – don’t screw around trying to do them with a stanley, etc.