Copper water supply failure at a tight spot...

[soparklion11]

I have an 80 yo house and I currently have a leak in a copper elbow fitting - in red - that is adjacent to a Tee fitting that supplies the dishwasher. Question: How to mount the pex valves? Feel free to answer any questions that I've failed to identify as questions (tic).

I plan to cutoff the Hot Supply just to the left of the Tee to the dishwasher (with a 1/2" pipe cutter wheel), install a sharkbite and pex tubing, then a bend and two pex-crimp valves. This area is too tight for me to sweat new copper and I think that the elbow joint may be failing due to its proximity the the Tee, which is ~15 years old.

Yes, I will also trash and replace the wet insulation. I am reasonably proficient in crimping pex connections. I just replaced my kitchen cabinets last year, I'm trying to avoid cutting out any more of the back of the cabinet.

My primary concern is that I don't have a joist or hanger for mounting those pex valves. The drain line is to the right of the cold shutoff valve and is somewhat in the way for me to place a 2x4 between the joists... any comments appreciated.

 

[bud16415]

If it were mine and I went thru all this with the house we are in now. If one elbow is leaking it could mean it is all getting old. In my case each time i fixed something something else would go. I abandoned it all and went all the way back to the meter and replaced the whole house with PEX with a DIY manifold and home run the house from there. It only took a day and a half to do the whole 2 story house.

That may not be practical for you at this time so I would go back as far as i could on that one item and redo the whole thing PEX. Making it ready when the time comes to just connect it to the home run manifold.

 

[soparklion11]

I agree. I re-ran my bathrooms in pex. I should probably break down and just do the whole house... Should I stub out through the drywall or can I just leave the drywall open? For my bathrooms, which I re-ran in pex, I used drop-ears to convert to pipe. I don't plan to do that here and I don't know how to execute it as far as how to support the pex so that it isn't just flopping around... or is floppy pex ok?

 

[bud16415]

Flopping is ok, but they sell clamps that you can nail it to a stud or joist. My valves just hang out in air supported by the PEX. In our one bath we have a pedestal sink and it looked bad so i used zip-ties to run it along the drain pipe. I didn't do the red and blue I just bought rolls of the white and marked the hots at valves with red tape. When I did mine straight pieces of PEX were only 10' long. Now i see straight pieces in the builder centers 20'. A few places running the rolled stuff is a little harder as it fights you getting it straight but it is much better than elbows all over the place. All mine are long uninterrupted runs.

Several places for outside faucets I connected at the manifold both hot and cold with a tee fitting. I normally keep the hot shut off but if i want hot outside I just go to the basement and shut the cold open the hot or open the hot and cold and get warm water.

I spent most of a week messing around fixing the old and then changed gears and did the whole house in PEX in two days. Mine was pretty bad though a hodgepodge of steel, copper, PVC and some PEX the old owner had done. The house sat empty no heat for two years and the only stuff that wasn't bad was the PEX so I thought I would give it a try.

As to open or stubs, I tried to keep as much of it as I could out of exterior walls and when I had to where I could and it wouldn't be seen I left it open with the insulation behind the PEX getting some warm house air on the PEX. Where we live it gets as cold as -40f and the house is circa 1870 and even after being reworked there are still cold spots.