Hi there. My name is Nils with LRN2DIY, and today we're going to give you an
overview of how to use PEX pipe and PEX fittings to do your plumbing for
homeowners. So let's say for example, you have a scenario where you need a
half inch pipe and you've just got to run another one off of it. You've
got to create a T. With PEX, it's really nice because you
have your red pipe for hot, your blue pipe for cold. And
then there's also white PEX, which is probably the more common
to use in a lot of situations. It's actually a little bit
less expensive at most places, but I really love using the red and blue
because it's very clear to see what's hot and what's cold. So to
do that, it's really simple. We're going to take this, we'll
take a basic pair of shears here, and these are ratcheted.
And so as you close it up, they hold in place for you and you can
use these to cut PVC or anything else. And they only cost about 12
bucks for a set like this. So I can put this in here, make a cut,
and it's gonna cut nice and clean. Like this and not much to it. So
that'll do a really nice clean cut. I'm going to cut one more
piece for our T here. Okay. So I've got three pieces and I'm going
to make a T like this to run off to a sink or a toilet or something
of that nature, for example. So all we need to do for that is we can
take one of our elbow or our T's here For the half inch. You'll notice I'm
using shark bite for most of these, and it's kind of convenient because all
of the half-inch stuff has pink on the bags and all of the three-quarter-inch
has blue on the bags. So I'm going to show you how to use
both of these types of crimps here. So first we'll slide over
a copper ring on one side, and then we'll fit in our barbed
T. Then on the other side, we'll slide on a pinch clamp and also
slide that over the T making sure to get right up to the ends. There's
little stoppers on here that you can see. And that's how you know, you've got it
right up to the right place right there. So I'll put those in place and then we
can pick another one for our T here, so I'll put another clamp
ring on here. Here we go. So that's the general structure of
it, and now to tighten these down, we're going to make sure that these are
about 1/8 of an inch away from the end of the pipe and for the clamp
rings or the pinch clamps. Sorry, I'm just going to use my tool here to go
ahead and tighten these down and you'll see, it's got a nice wide open mouth. I'm going to apply that to the thick
part that sticks out here on the clamp ring, Pinch clamp. I can't get the
terminologies. Right. Okay. So I'll put it on the pinch clamp here
, has to be all the way open to start. There we go. Okay. So
once that's in there, then it's really just a
matter of squeezing that. Okay. You can see from the profile here, it really squeezed the heck out of that
thing and brought that whole clamp right in tight and even created a little
cinching factor there on the pipe, which is exactly what
we want. Now real quick, I'll do the same thing on the
next one. The other pinch clamp, put that in, make sure I'm about
1/8 of an inch away from the end, and I'm in good on that barbed
T, and it ratchets down. And there we go. So that
one's all set as well. So those two are good. Now I'm going
to show you how to do the copper rings. I've got a little tool here and this is
also pretty inexpensive and you can see it's got a half inch crimp
up here, a 3/8 crimp. And the cool thing on this is you can
flip it around and you can have on the other side now you've got
your three-quarter crimp
and a three-quarter gauge. So we'll show you how these
all work in just a second. So I'm going to place this
with a half-inch crimp onto my ring. Again, lining up our, approximate 1/8 gap there toward the end, and then all you need to power
these is a pair of vice grips. So I've got some vice grips here and I've
already got them set to the right size so that I can squeeze them down
and they'll close the clamps here. So as I do that, we can see it's squeezing down until
it closes all the way like that. So now that's on there really good. And we're going to check to make sure
that that's on there all the way with the go-no-go gate. Remove that. Take it back off, and
then right down here, we have the half inch no-go
gauge and the half inch gauge. Basically what that does for us, if our
ring fits in the half inch, go gauge, we should be all set. If
it fits in the no-go gauge, that means we've squeezed it too far,
and it's going to be a little bit oblong, which means it could leak,
which is bad news, of course. So I'm going to fit it in here.
And yeah, you can see right here, it fits perfectly in that half inch
go gauge and it does not fit in the no-go gauge. So we're good. So we have a nice watertight fitting
just like that with some simple tools and not a lot of work. And we can
use T's, we can use our elbows. We've got plugs for the end of a
line or stubbing something out. We can connect this to a three-eighths
inch nut here for connecting to a water supply for your toilet
or for a sink. Over here, we've got the kind where you can connect
this to your shower for your hot and cold or your shower head. And you can fasten this to a
2x4 or something on the wall. And it's got a nice barbed
PEX fitting just like that. Now both with the half inch
and the three quarter inch, you can buy these little clamps
that actually are holders. They hold everything down in place. And
then you can basically just, let's say, we did this connection here.
We want it to fasten it. You can just put it right
up against like that, drive the nail into a stud
or a 2x4 back behind it, and that holds everything in place. Another really nice thing
about PEX is it's flexible. You've got a good amount of flex in there. You don't want to overdo it or try to
do crazy angles or anything like that, but it can go pretty far before
it starts to crimp or bend. If it does crimp or bend, it needs
to be replaced. It's not something, with PEX B, at least that's
going to recover from that. I just I thought I'd show a quick
real world example of where this is applicable. I've got a hot water pipe up here that
I need to splice into to run a hot water line up to our upstairs bathroom. So I'm going to show you
exactly how to do that. Using just the same techniques that
we just looked at a minute ago. So here's the cold water that comes
in to the water heater itself here. So I'm also gonna make sure that's off. I'll turn the hot water
on turn on the hot side, especially down here in the basement.
Same thing in the kitchenette. Already have no water to the
shower. So that's a good sign. This one is about done and all
of the other ones are drained. So we're ready to cut open
the line. I've also brought a rag to cover this up. What I'm thinking I'll do is
I'll cut it right over here, just because there's all this goop here
as it goes into one of the air returns. So I'll get that ready. I'm just going to use the same
cutters that we showed earlier. Get them primed a little bit. And I'm going to cut probably right here. Okay. We'll cut in here and I'm going to kind of protect this
just so it doesn't come squirting out at me. Move this over a bit. All right, here we go. We've got a little bit, not too
much coming out. That's good. Okay. You can see that. There's not much there, which means we
did a good job of draining the lines. And that's pretty much it.
I'm going to point these down to really get anything that's left. Now with those cutters, I'll
create a slightly larger gap. Enough that we can fit the T in
it with a little bit of finagling. So I'll go about here. So I've got about a one inch gap in there. I'm going to slide my pinch
clamps onto the three-quarter inch there and here. And then I'll basically, there's some water still coming
out for the barb fitting in there as well as in there. Good. Okay.
That's exactly what I needed. And I've got the half inch pipe.
You probably can't see it on camera, but it's pointing up that way towards
where the water line is going to go my half inch. So now with
those in place, take my crimping tool. Get my measurements
about an eighth inch away there. Right there. There we go. There's one, make sure that one's all the way on And there's two. Okay. So our three
quarter inch line should be good to go. Now we'll do the same with the half
inch line as I feed it upstairs. I'm going to start by placing it
up. In fact, I'll put this end up. That's going up to the bathroom
upstairs right next to the cold water. I'll put a crimp ring on
it, pinch clamp on it. And then fit it. Over the barbed fitting, just
like so, and we should be good. Yep. I think we're okay. And that's that. So now we have an open line upstairs
that we'll go take a look at, but down here, the plumbing is done.
That took like five minutes to do, maybe less. And that's it. The appropriate time to put a flange
on like this white one right here. And I don't have one right now. So I'm actually going to
have to put one on after, by cutting it and sliding
it around, but for now, I'm just going to move ahead
and then use my cutters. To. Cut this to length. I'll slide on my pinch clamp facing out towards me, put in the valve, and kind of face it that way a little bit. And then as long as I can reach it anyway. There we go. Just a matter of clamping
down on this thing. There we go. And now with the valve closed, then I should be able to
turn the hot water back on. Nothing will come up here until I open it, and I can connect this to the bidet
that we're going to be putting up here. Okay. Now the hot water, or the cold water's coming back
into the hot water heater and I've already turned the main on. So. I hear water going into
the sinks, but up here we are dry. Good. Okay. Right now all of the water's
back on including the hot
water and that has sealed off really nicely, no leaks, no issues. And that's how easy it can be
to install a new waterline. So hopefully this helps you feel a little
less intimidated by working with some of the plumbing inside your home. Working with PEX in particular can be
actually pretty straightforward and simple to work with. And I've done full
basement finishes, new bathrooms, different things like that. And this
stuff has always been very reliable, never had any leaks or issues with
it. And it's just a great way to go. So if you have questions or comments, please feel free to leave those
in the comment section below, we've got several other videos coming
out around plumbing and plumbing for homeowners and just helping you get
started and feel comfortable with whatever plumbing you need to do in your
home. My name is Nils with LRN2DIY. Thanks for watching. And
we'll see you next time.
