I have some decent ideas as to why, I’m asking mainly as a hopefully fun contribution here, and to maybe learn some interesting plumbing info!

  • Lev_Astov
    5•1 year ago

    I recently had to have my 1980s house’s water main connection replaced because they used some experimental flexible hose material from the late 80s and it’s all starting to embrittle and fail now. Wouldn’t have happened with PEX…

    I’ve been reading about PEX now and it sounds like it only became commercially viable to produce in large volumes in the 1990s, even thought it’s existed as a form of polyethylene since the 1930s. It’s just now becoming cheap enough to be used everywhere because it’s obviously better and we have lots of material performance data on it.

    • @mysoulishomeEnglish
      6•1 year ago

      Polybutylene. Yeah bad times if you’ve plumbing made out of it the US.

      • Lev_Astov
        3•1 year ago

        Yep, that’s the stuff! They tried to fish the new PEX line through by pulling it with the old stuff, but it broke apart in several places when trying to pull it out.