Fastest way to remove PEX from crimp fittings

all right so I've got a pile of pecs fittings they were all connected to a bunch of PEX tubing it was all done incorrectly the crimson weren't right it was on the outside of the 2x4 studs it was done by some well-meaning volunteers so anyways instead of buying a whole bunch of new fittings because you know these can be pretty expensive I'm just going through and removing them all and thought I'd make a video on how to remove a fitting so that you don't damage it so you can reuse it and so that it's a fast and easy job and you don't struggle for an hour just trying to get a two dollar fitting back so first thing is is I use a rotary tool a dremel this is just a battery-operated one and I cut the fitting off [Music] so then I stick in my knife right here after I've made that cut through and just pop it apart so after it's popped apart just grab with pair of pliers and remove it so now that I have just the text here the easiest way to do this is with the torch and I'll show you that method and then I'll show you how to remove it with a knife so I just turned on my torch here put the pegs over it like marshmallow I'm trying not to burn it but it doesn't really matter the brass fitting is not gonna get curved by this but I don't want a bunch of fumes from melting though Thanks so once I do that I just grab onto it with a pair of pliers so I don't burn myself it comes off really easily I mean it's yeah it's super easy so that's the that's the fastest way especially if you've got like a tea and you've got a bunch of fittings on it you just roast that whole tea get nice and warm and they just fall off so that's a quick and easy way you can do a bunch really fast like that however if you have to remove pecks off of say a shut off like this one right here if you have to remove packs off of a shut off then you don't want to use a torch because there can be little plastic parts inside of here that would get damaged not all of them are like that but I just yeah I just prefer not to take a chance on damaging any internal parts and a valve so I take my knife and you can do this as well with any kind of Tex fitting I take my knife and sorry if I'm blocking the view a little bit but I've put my knife at the very very back of the fitting and I make a cut all the way to the base of the fitting then from that same line I drag it back and I make a score across the top not really going all the way through to the pecs underneath or I mean to the fitting underneath and then I just grab the pecs pretty close to the end of the fitting and I just bend it just bend it so that it breaks right where I've cut it so you can see that so right where it's come on focus on this so anyways right there where the cut is is where it's gonna break and allow the pecs to come off so now with this the reason why I make this score at the very back right here is because this back part doesn't matter if that gets a little nick in it from the knife blade it's not going to do anything because the crimp ring is going around these two barbs here and it's not gonna matter if there's a NIC back here if you Nick this though across the barbs you open yourself up for leaks even once it's crimped to come out there so if you Nick this part then you need to throw this away and you don't want to reuse it also I would say if you're not using metal if you're not using brass then don't reuse them okay they're plastic if they're the plastic PEX fittings you don't want to use them just just buy new but if they're the brass fittings then if you do what I just now did they will come out just as good as when they were in the factory because there's never been any damage to the barbs you're not cutting across them with a knife you're simply making a score across the top and you are plunging it into the back so you're not going to damage these or if you heat them up it's not going to damage these either so this is the easiest fastest method for removing them and you can also use the torch say you don't have a rotary tool you can also in a pinch use the torch to heat up the fitting while it still has the crimp rings crimped on and you just have to heat it up quite a bit more but you can still pull it off even without cutting the Rings just with a torch but it is a little bit more difficult I just go through I cut all my fittings apart and I'll show you my little pile that I made here

Channel: My Fortress Construction

Views: 121,265

Keywords:

Id: aNl2FBiCbQc

Length: 5min 7sec (307 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 14 2019