How hard is it to work with black pipe?

[stee6043]

Well the day is near. I unloaded the EKO 40 on Saturday and managed to get it in the basement. My two 500 gallon propane tanks will be delivered this week.

I have been planning on using black pipe (1-1/4") for all of my plumping except for my heat zone loop. I will be using 1" Pex AL to pipe the HX inside my forced air furnace.

If you had to plumb up (2) tanks to the boiler with all of the necessary valves, shutoffs, etc would you choose black or copper? Obviously black is a lot cheaper than copper currently. Black pipe is easily available pre-threaded. One downside to black pipe I am thinking about is how well things fit together at the end. I may end up with one "custom" piece of pipe to get it to all fit together. I guess the other side is how much longer it will take to run black pipe (as far as tightening, working with the putty, etc).

Any thoughts?? Since I should end up with 40' or less of pipe, not including the Pex, I could potentially justify copper if it were really that much easier....any thoughts would be greatly appreciated...

 

[leaddog]

Black pipe is quite easy to work with but you want to be sure you get things tight. It also depends on how many fittings you need as they can get expensive. I helped my son do his and most of his was with black pipe and pex and I'm redoing mine and I'm using a combination of all.
Sent you a pm
leaddog

 

[deerefanatic]

I used black for all the big (1.5" and up) stuff, and pex and copper for everything else..........

 

[steam man]

I just paid about $4.70 ft for 1" copper "L". I doubt steel is anywhere near that. The fittings weren't cheap either. The down side of steel is having the equipment to do the threading and having some experience making threads so you won't have to do it twice. You can only use so many pre-threaded pieces in a 40' run. I would probably consider using weldable fittings since it is easier to fit up pieces exactly though you don't usually see welded fittings in a residence.

Mike

 

[slowzuki]

I did a bunch of mine in 1.25" black steel, easy to work with, much cheaper. I'm oh so tempted to try welding some joints, just really enjoy the look of a nice cleanly welded joint!

 

[free75degrees]

I am just finishing up my installation with mostly 1 1/4 black pipe and some copper. It was my first time using it and it is pretty easy. I had to get some custom pieces for the ends but it wasn't a big deal since HD does it for free. If you have some long lengths you can get a little leeway from side to side from pipe flexing. Also, once you add in the fittings for drains, ball valves etc, you will use a bunch of short nipples, so you can adjust the overall lengths by using various combinations of close, 2", 2.5", 3", etc nipples. My mind set was that there was no way I was going to make one trip to the store. Instead a did smaller sections at a time to be sure I was getting the right lengths.

 

[stee6043]

Thanks for all the replies. Sounds like the original plan for black pipe is still a good idea. I figured I'd need a piece or two of custom cut pipe but if I can get everything else done with standard sizes and nipples I'll be quite pleased. Thanks again guys.

 

[gorsuchmill]

I'm trying to resolve the same issues, i.e. iron vs. copper. Did those of you who choosed iron use dielectic fittings/unions when connecting to copper so as to prevent corrosion? I received my Tarm installation guide and it seems to show a bunch of copper fittings directly into copper, but it was my understanding this is not good practice.

Any thoughts?

 

[Eric Johnson]

I don't have any dielectic fittings in my system, which consists of pex-al-pex, black iron and copper. Black iron is fun to work with, by the way. You can do just about everything with standard fittings and lengths, and it's a lot cheaper than copper (though it adds up like anything else).

 

[steam man]

I'm trying to resolve the same issues, i.e. iron vs. copper. Did those of you who choosed iron use dielectic fittings/unions when connecting to copper so as to prevent corrosion? I received my Tarm installation guide and it seems to show a bunch of copper fittings directly into copper, but it was my understanding this is not good practice.

Any thoughts?

As I understand it dielectric unions are trouble. Just make sure you have a bronze or brass fitting between the copper and steel.

Mike

 

[Jim in CT]

Isn't there a temp limit on pex-al-pex?

 

[Eric Johnson]

240, maybe. I forget, but it's high enough for my needs.

 

[chuck172]

I'm old fashioned, I don't like pex. In all honesty thats probably because I'm not very familiar with it.
If you can afford to do the install with copper go for it. Much easier to make changes latter. Many black screw fittings you get now-a-days are crap. I've run across bushings made in china with sand holes. When you have to use screw fittings, I like to use wicking and black permatex, grip etc.
You'll have a better more versatile job with copper.

 

[digger104]

I just saw a 1/2" length of pex today, it had a split on one end, this was a test, it had 1000 lbs of air to make it split. This was a factory test.

 

[stee6043]

I've read a lot of posts from folks using PEX so I have to believe it's holding up pretty well. I plan to use my 1" pex-al-pex on my heat zone but I'm having a heck of a time finding compression fittings that will work without a wicked expensive tool....

 

[taxidermist]

I'm old fashioned, I don't like pex. In all honesty thats probably because I'm not very familiar with it.
If you can afford to do the install with copper go for it. Much easier to make changes latter. Many black screw fittings you get now-a-days are crap. I've run across bushings made in china with sand holes. When you have to use screw fittings, I like to use wicking and black permatex, grip etc.
You'll have a better more versatile job with copper.

Chuck,

I spent alot of time trying to weld china couplings onto my propane tanks man what a pain in the rear. JUNK!!

 

[chuck172]

"I just saw a 1/2” length of pex today, it had a split on one end, this was a test, it had 1000 lbs of air to make it split. This was a factory test."

At what temperature. I wonder how many pounds it would hold at 190 degrees?

 

[rowerwet]

I've read a lot of posts from folks using PEX so I have to believe it's holding up pretty well. I plan to use my 1" pex-al-pex on my heat zone but I'm having a heck of a time finding compression fittings that will work without a wicked expensive tool....

As someone who has used pex to change my original copper FHW heat plumbing, I found that sharkbite fittings are worth the money and unless you are doing many (around 100) connections they will probably be cheaper than the crimp type connections. In fact when I changed my house to a three zone system this month I was able to reuse the existing sharkbite connectors from last year without any problems. the only leak I had was on a fitting that I didn't get seated all the way. Pex and sharkbites are the only way I will go from now on. the only issue when reusing a sharkbite connector I found was the little plastic nipple that goes in the end of the pipe tends to come out with the pipe.

 

[stee6043]

10-4 on the shark bites. Unfortunately, the shark bite fittings will not work with Pex-AL-Pex. I did end up buying some compression fittings from Cozy Heat that will work with pex-al-pex. So all is well...

 

[SteveJ]

stee6043,

Which compression fittings did you get?

I am using 3/4" Kitec XPA and have the same issue finding fittings...

Thanks,
Steve

 

[stee6043]

I don't know the brand but if you call Dave at Cozy he will set you up. I just received my fittings on Friday. They were loose, not pacakged, as I'm sure Cozy is buying them in bulk. I haven't test fitted them but I'm sure Dave wouldn't steer me wrong...especially since he also sold me the Pex I'm connecting it to!

 

[MrEd]

I'm old fashioned, I don't like pex. In all honesty thats probably because I'm not very familiar with it.
If you can afford to do the install with copper go for it. Much easier to make changes latter. Many black screw fittings you get now-a-days are crap. I've run across bushings made in china with sand holes. When you have to use screw fittings, I like to use wicking and black permatex, grip etc.
You'll have a better more versatile job with copper.

Chuck, any chance you could upload a picture of the piping on the back of your tarm? I am interest to see how much if any black iron you installed on your tarm, and how you made the transition from one type to the other...

I am just about to dig into my piping part of my install, and I was planning on use black iron near the boiler and then transition to copper for the longer runs to the oil boiler (50' one way). Did you have any problems using copper pipes to support the weight of things like the circulators, air expansion tanks etc? One nice think about black-iron is that it is very sturdy...none-the-less, after spending all morning shopping for black-iron fittings, I am realizing its going to take me about 20 trips to the store to piece everything together with off-the-shelf BI parts, whereas if I come home with loads of copper I can probably get it almost all done in a day or two with minimal trips (1 hour round trip at least)

Copper is NOT cheap in this size...I am now estimating close to $1000 just for the pipes.

 

[Tony H]

I used some black pipe and it was not too bad to work with but I transitioned to copper and found it was easier to cut to the correct lengths than have a big pile of lengths of Bl pipe.