Heyah all, great forums.

Last year I replumbed a house with Wirsbo Pex system. It was my first experience with Pex. I used a manual expander I got from e-bay and used a supply house to purchase fittings. Overall a decent experience.

I since then sold the tool and am now building a house. Locally I can buy Watts fittings. They use a stainless steel ring that appears to only need 1 tool. The fittings seem to be same price maybe a little cheaper (brass). I am wondering what the drawback would be to using a local supplied Watts Pex system instead of Wirsbo's system? The wirsbo fittings seem to have more test ratings which makes me think they may be better quality, and provide cleaner water (lead free, etc.) while Watts fittings seem to just do the basic 'Lead Free' option now.

Any advice? I'm stuck in a bind, I want to assure my drinking water is as clean as possible, and I also want my fittings to last my lifetime.



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If you are doing another house, I recommend looking into this [www.milwaukeetool.com] I really don't like the pex system with the little stainless band. If you are using type b pex, I would use copper crimp rings instead of the stainless clamp. I personally like the wirsbo/uphonor Type A pex as well. I like the plastic fittings for most applications, and use brass when I need to. The fittings for uphonor have a larger inside diameter as well.

"I really don't like the pex system with the little stainless band"..
me too...

I would buy the tool if I used Wirsbo, but since fittings are not available locally it means I have to order everything online and wait for it to arive to do a job and if I am missing or short a fitting it means another delay. Is Wirsbo superior enough to make that worth the trouble?

Any reason to use the plastic fittings like EP ones from Wirsbo instead of their brass fittings?

Lastly, has the stainless ring had a bad track record?

In my opinion yes. The tubing itself is superior, and if you kink it, it doesn't mean throwing out the tubing, it can be heated to soften and restore the shape.

In situations with softened water, water with pH issues, or any time not requiring a brass connection, I prefer the plastic. Any situation that you need to thread to something else I would only use brass. With the no-lead laws, I don't necessarily trust the new formulations of brass at this point.

I have seen them leak. I don't know if it is actually the connection method, or an error from the installer, but I know none of my pex joints have ever leaked unless I forgot to crimp them. With Wirsbo, you can't assemble them without the joint being expanded first, so you won't even have that issue.

I need to decide in the next day because my deadline to return some old Wirsbo fittings ends then. I have a milwaukee tool with no heads, and some fittings that I can all return online. Just wondering if I should buy 1/2" and 3/4" expander tips and buy into more of Wirsbo for my house build or sell it and only use the stainless steel cinch clamps. They seem pretty decent too.

I replaced a cinch clamp that another plumber installed. it failed after 7 years. it caused a lot of damage.
you do as you wish. I will not use them.

The difference is that PEX has a memory and always wants to go back to the size that it was extruded. With the Wirsbo system the tube only tries to get tighter, with a crimp fitting all the tube wants to do is expand away from the fitting.

A-Pex has memory, B-Pex does not