To Tackle a plumbing job.

[Lakota Wolf]

The weather is finally some what predicatble so its time to attack the honey do list, As of to date,, 4,972 pages in small text. Now 4,963 are of a NOT needed immediatly,, like the hot tub/jaccuzzi,pool table,skeet shooting platform and zip line.I have definitly scratched off the olympic sized swimming pool,, apparently you need a permit for that.

I am going to go with full plumbing replacement. This is after I tackled a copper to plastic crimp fitting connector. These are the worst,,, ya just cant re-crimp a new fitting. I wondered through Home depot with that lost yet eager look in my eyes,, and of course I had to stop by the tool section and drool a lil,,, lots of shiney tools and power tools with mega power,,, I drooled over a new and improved 3/4 inch H.D drill,, boasting 300 hp, with 1200 ft lbs of torque... Can spin a phone pole out of the ground in 3.4 seconds. Ok,, that was a little exagerated,, But it was heavy and had all sorts of warnings on the box. Its just like that new shop vac I had bought a while back,, was so powerful it could suck nails out of a hardwood floor. I dont recommend vacuming the carpet with it. I wonder over to the plumbing dept. to look at different scheduled pvc pipe,,, the schedule rating on pvc,, to me just means, how much are you willing to spend.As I looked at the different sizes and colors,,(yes,, they have colored pvc now), I pondered,, hmmmm I wonder if 8 inch fresh water main line is a tad to big?  Then I came to my senses,, it would be very hard to bend a little where needed,,, so scratch that idea,,, Plus I would have serious volume but very little pressure. I rationalized and thought logically and was looking at the standard 1/2 inch straight run pvc pipe.. And seeing that they come in 8 ft,10ft, and 12 ft lengths,, it seemed workable,, along with couplers,elbows,90's  45's etc.. then ya have to buy primer and glue, And after you install it,, the most likely place it will leak is at a coupler,, which is usually located in a spot you cant get to unless you rip the whole run of line out. There has to be an easier more practical way. Ding,ding,ding,,, I see what I need.. Pex (brand) 50 ft rolls of tubing / pvc. to be used with shark bite brand connectors. This way, I can run a straight shot line, with enough play in the tubing to go around slight curves and obstacles.I can also follow the original plumbing and have everything lined up for a quick swap over while still using my old lines till then. Everyone knows if you rip out the plumbing first then start replacing it,,, it goes from a day job to a 4 month with out water job. Now a trick I learned when having to go thru an area of the rv thats not accessable it to use a piece of pvc pipe about 2 ft long,,, some string and a tampon,, yes  a tampon,,, dont be grossed out,,, these things are a life saver. Ya tie the string to the string of the tampon, (quit laughing), shove it into the pvc tube,, fire up your compressor and use a blow gun at the other end, and Whoosh,, squeeze the air gun trigger and it launches that cotton projectile with string attached a really good distance,,, I think my record is about 12 feet. Untie the string from said tampon projectile and drill small hole in the end of pvc pipe and tie the string to it and just pull it back to you.

Now guys,, This IS a good reason to go shopping for feminine products for your wife or daughter and not be embarrased.

Funny stroy about those to,,, a friend was messing around with my simple air cannon and launched a said feminine product across the BBQ grill and it caught fire and hit the ground,, and yells,, what do I do know,,, I calmly suggest he Tampon on it to put it out..

 Hope this tid bit of humor and info helps someone out who plans on doing extensive plumbing.

[Russell E Johnson]

The MMP has the old gray tubing in it, but I do not think it is any harder to work with than the new and improved pex stuff. So I just patch up the old--usually a joint that has gone bad--and keep on truckin. I hope you re-plumb goes well.

[Lakota Wolf]

I forgot to mention,,, I am replumbing a 28 ft terry 5th wheel with a full slide out. and the challenge with a slide is,, very little or easy access to the plumbing. The scenario is ,,the water comes in from the side (normal) but is up between the upper bunk and in front of the slide. The main water line then travels toward the back of the RV where the kitchen is located, Under the right side of the kitchen cabinet is the gas water heater. (I also have a recently installed electric water heater on the left side of the sink under the cabinet). Then the water line SPLITS to supply the hot water,, and 2 lines then go back up towards the front of the RV to supply the bathroom,, Can you say, double water lines. Now with my circumstance is,, the RV has a full belly pan and insulation skirt.The only way to *see the plumbing is through 3 of the service /storage compartments located outside,, and under the cabinets,, under the kitchen sink,,under the stove and under the bathroom sink,, and with the shower next to the sink on the same wall,, there is an access in the living room closet to access the shower faucet. The toilet supply line dissapears into the floor and runs over next to the Furnace, which by the way has a storage compartment close to it. The *Hidden run where the slide out is,,, is the tricky one,, a Blind shot so to speak,, Cant quite squeeze my melon into the storage compartment to look down towards the back and a mirror didnt help much. I thought it was going to be impossible,, but changed my attitude and said to myself,, Im up for a good challenge, and never say never,, right?  Well unless your argueing with your spouse.

[Lakota Wolf]

Those Flair it fittings are great,, But Home depot is really pushing the shark bite brand,, mostly due to the fact, they KNOW you will have to take a 3rd mortgage on your house to get a good assorment of them for emergencies. On average,, a simple coupler shark bite fitting is around $8 EACH, (I think I heard a thud from someone passing out). They even have a tool to remove the fitting,, and guess what,,,,,  its $8.. double thud. I liked the color pex, and I forgot to mention, I went with the white,(Im a tightwad) and I used a sharpie and marked HOT and COLD every couple of feet,, and then used Blue electrical tape for my cold and RED for the hot every few feet or on each end.  Nothing is worse then mislabeling and running hot water to your toilet, (except for winter use,,lol ) and ya sit down and are getting a steam bath, I try and avoid any sharp turn,, I have even looped a line to avoid a sharp turn. After I am done with the plumbing job, I have a schematic drawn up with my trusty crayons showing how and where its run in the RV and put in the maintenance folder,,, mite come in handy for me later or the next owner.

[Edward Hall]

Thanks for the post...funny, and practical workaround for feeding line thru the dark and misty nether regions of the RV!  I recently ran all new Pex lines in my 1988 Travelmaster.  I didn't go with the sharkbite fittings because man-oh-man are they expensive!  I ended up using flair-it fittings all the way around and they worked great.  I had the benefit of having pretty open access to the full pathway for the water lines thru the entire rig as I was doing some other mods/upgrades; plus the 88 TM system is pretty simple.  I also found that the color Pex was substantially more $ than plain white Pex and didn't come in 50 or 100 ft rolls at the big box store I shop at, so I went with the white Pex 100' roll and just wrapped red or blue electric tape to each segment as I went along.  I also got some of the metal corner bend supports (full 90 degree bend in three or four inches.  I was able to run 15' of line from the bathroom around two corners to the shower on the other side of the rig without any cuts or fittings!  The old run had elbows at both corners.  I would say, if you can afford it, go with the sharkbite fittings as they are super easy to use whereas sometimes it was a pain getting a tool in place to tighten the flair-it fittings...especially the cold water feed to the toilet.  In any case, thanks again for the post!