PEX Copper Crimp Rings vs. Stainless Steel Clamps

everyone it's the eclectic handyman here with a quick video talking about my preference and experience when it comes to pex crimp connectors whether that's a clamp style connector or whether that is a copper crimp ring [Music] all right so when you have pex piping you need to secure it you know to certain fittings and such and you're going to need a way to secure it so there's two main methods that i'm showing here which are very popular again the copper ring versus the stainless steel clamp they have their own respective tools on how to compress them and actually i have this uh in reverse because this tool goes with the clamp and this one goes with the copper crimp ring for starters again two separate tools but i want to preface by saying both of these are equally effective i have seen nothing or read nothing about strength or anything of that matter mine comes from a little different angle a couple of things one well if you talk about price so this bag right here has a whole slew of them there are you know you know 20 25 and oh here it is 25 there are 25 rings in here all right this and that was ten dollars this one right here is a ten pack and eight dollars so the stainless steel is a little more expensive but stainless steel does hold up it's a bit more resistant to corrosion versus the copper but if you're inside the house or in a crawl space that's you know relatively dry i don't think there's a big deal between the two of them from that aspect now uh as far as the tool for crimping down even though this one for the the copper rings is much larger it actually they were about the same price you're talking in the 60 to 80 range for either but what i really found to be one of the big differences that i thought was removal and why would you need to remove it well inevitably plumbing has issues or maybe you did something and messed up and you need to do it again so the they both have their own way of being able to remove this is a piece that i took off here from a cold water line and there is a tool that i'm not showing here but it basically goes in from the cutoff end and you can cut these copper rings in two spaces and it'll come off that tool's about 25 to 30 but the trick about it is is you have to come in because it's like an alligator so you have to have an exposed in now depending on where the plumbing is that may not be a problem or you can cut this here or here and then get in here because this piece you're going to redo it i'm going to show you where that can be a problem these rings however even though there is a tool for removal that will snap this part once compressed are actually not difficult to do with some basic uh around the house tools all you need is basically a set of pliers to bend this tab back and then you just take another pair of pliers and you just peel this back it will come right off now why is that important let's go over here and look at an actual situation so i'm in here at the main water line that comes into the house and as you can see i don't have a lot of access here of extra pex tubing so if this needs to be removed or redone as you can see i've already shown you the piece you ideally you know you just want to use same same but here's the situation i had a bad elbow that had been scored previously and the only way to get that elbow off because of the copper ring was to cut this back this was actually a little bit further and so when i cut that back you know i'm in a situation where i don't have a lot of room to deal with here and so i was really hesitant to put on another copper ring here because if i did and there was any problem or any leaking the only way i would be able to get that copper ring off because i can't get in with the alligator from this side is i would once again have to cut and you're supposed to give yourself a couple of inches and at this point i've got a major project because now i have to get behind the wall etc with this one if for some reason it didn't secure right or there was an issue i could just peel this tab back peel it off pull out the elbow reassemble put another crimp again it wouldn't be our clamp it wouldn't be normally you wouldn't expect any problems but i'm just saying these do give you the flexibility of taking them off in place whereas the copper rings you're going to have to get in from an open section of the tube which is not possible so i find this a big advantage in these cases like this where you have an obstruction where you can't get in and you don't want to cut off too much of your pecs the last thing i'm going to get into is actual tool usage and you've probably read about this or seen but this tool takes a a lot more muscle to use to compress than does the tool that's used for these clamps it still takes some grip muscle but the amount of room that you have to compress with this tool is is much smaller than this which almost looks like a pair of bolt cutters and you can actually think of it exactly like that you have to swing them wide out and then you have to you know come in together and it once it snaps into place it's fine these are very very common but another problem is if you're in a tight space it doesn't uh take a lot of thinking here to know would i really have this in a tight space or this and if i go back to where i was just working this was another problem in here i have a wall a wall a water heater and getting the tool for the copper ring style compression connect connector was a big problem because by the time it spread out i was hitting this wall and over here and it was really difficult i barely had any clearance when i had tried that before but the other tool for this style of clamp was much easier and you could pivot it around so for me kind of reviewing you know price isn't really that much of a deal but it could come into a factor if you were say doing a re-pipe or some major plumbing uh re-plumbing or plumbing new plumbing you know 10 versus 25 and if you do the math these are more expensive tools are comparable in price although if you were doing a large job you might have something even more sophisticated with air or a compression tool but so cost really isn't a determining factor effectiveness they're both going to bite down and uh secure your pecs to the fittings just fine so that's not it so some of it just comes to consistency if i'm working in an area and they have this already i might go you know with that and if not i'll probably use these because again just to review they're easier to remove the tool is smaller there is a little advantage because they're stainless steel so they're not going to be corrosive and overall again it's you know it's just easier to squeeze and get those secure versus this one right here so anyway oh and one last thing uh these do say shark bite and some might be like well i don't use shark bite they're actually made uh there are some different brands these are just generic to packs you might find copper rings made by another company or this uh style which is probably patented for this style of pex clamp and these happen to be three quarters so you may see this from another brand but they're identical in spec this just happened to be stuff i picked this up from ace hardware and this stuff came from lowe's so anyway just wanted to let you know not to be deterred because i'm not a big fan of shark bite connectors either that's for another day but as far as these crimp and clamp style and these tools i didn't have any problem with it at all anyway hope you found this comparison interesting maybe helps you make a decision i don't think you need to necessarily invest in both but for me on the job that i saved versus having somebody come out i'll probably keep both tools just to see and i will opt for this style most often again anyway this is the eclectic handyman i hope you found this useful and until next time we'll see you later you

Channel: The Eclectic Handyman

Views: 10,023

Keywords: pex, crimp, copper, ring, rings, stainless, connection, plumbing, comparison, leak, how to, removal, installation, connect, sharkbite, water, brass, lowes, home depot, ace hardware

Id: A2K45cjGp5U

Length: 8min 45sec (525 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 07 2022