FlowGuard Gold® CPVC
Discover why FlowGuard Gold Pipe and Fittings is the most well-established non-metallic piping product in the market.
Contractors | Homebuilders | PEX | residential plumbing
Plumbing engineers take pride in designing and specifying systems that provide the best experience for building owners and occupants. Yet, specifications that mix materials or are written so broadly that the contractor can make major design and material choices, fail to account for the significant differences that exist between commonly used materials such as CPVC and PEX. That can lead to issues that reduce plumbing system performance and reliability.
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PEX plumbing systems use a different style of fitting than more established CPVC and copper systems. With copper and CPVC, the pipe is inserted into the fitting whereas with PEX the fitting is inserted into the pipe and the two pieces are mechanically joined using other components. This more complex design has created challenges since early in the material’s life when concerns over the health effects of the lead found in brass fittings caused manufacturers to replace lead with zinc in PEX fittings, resulting in widespread failures. Today, installation errors, chlorine degradation and chemical incompatibility are most likely to be the cause of leaking in or around PEX fittings.
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Discover why you should make the switch to FlowGuard Gold® CPVC
CPVC | Contractors | PEX | Plumbing Systems | residential plumbing
Of all the ways to move fluid, the two that most people interact with most frequently are plumbing pipes and drinking straws. Surprisingly, there is a remarkable correlation between the diameter of common straw sizes and the internal diameter of the fittings used in PEX and FlowGuard Gold CPVC plumbing systems. By using drinking straws as a comparison, it becomes easy to see the significant differences between various plumbing fittings and why FlowGuard Gold CPVC outperforms PEX in flow and pressure.
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CPVC | Compatibility | Contractors | Copper | PEX | Plumbing Systems | Sustainability | residential plumbing
In a post published in early 2021, we identified three challenges plumbing contractors and home builders faced in dealing with a booming housing market. Now, as the boom becomes a slowdown, those challenges have become opportunities.
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CPVC | PEX | Plastic Piping | Plumbing Systems | Pressure Ratings
Plumbing engineers are increasingly being asked by owners and developers of multi-family, multi-story buildings to use specific materials in their designs. Usually, those requests are motivated by financial interests, such as the costs savings that can be realized with plastic plumbing systems. Some plastic systems, such as CPVC, can deliver excellent reliability and performance, but not all plastics are the same.
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It was great to be back at the NAHB International Builders’ Show (IBS) in Orlando this year. It’s difficult to know what to expect from a trade show these days, but the building industry turned out for IBS 2022 and the enthusiasm and passion of the builders that the show attracts makes this one of the most fun and energizing events of the year.
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Multi-Family | PEX | Sustainability | multiport
Mini-manifold plumbing systems have become a popular approach to reducing water and energy waste in multi-family and hotel construction. These mini-manifold systems, also known as remote manifold and submanifold systems, enable shorter branch lines from the hot water main or recirculating line and can result in faster hot-water delivery as well as contribute to points in both the NGBS and LEED environmental performance rating systems.
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CPVC | Chemical Compatibility | PEX
We recently conducted a short quiz designed to gauge plumbers’ knowledge of plumbing material characteristics and the right tools to use with different materials. Among the results was the finding that 42% of plumbers mistakenly attributed a classic case of PEX chlorine failure to UV light.
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After the widespread failures of polybutylene in the 1980s, ASTM F2023 was developed to evaluate the oxidative resistance of PEX piping in hot chlorinated water. Today, all PEX and many other polyolefin piping systems, including PPR, PP-RCT and PE-RT, are evaluated to ASTM F2023. But this standard is not without its limits.
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When value engineering a plumbing system, a product’s cost is just one of many factors that must be considered. Proper value engineering is a methodical effort that analyzes a system’s design, features, equipment, material selections and many other important variables with the goal of maintaining or enhancing the performance of a system for the lowest overall cost while maintaining code compliance. Unfortunately, while cost and code compliance is often considered in the value engineering process, the impact of material changes on system performance is rarely considered.
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