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When I first got into the home building game, the life expectancy of copper piping was 30 years. Houses built back in the late 60's are still using the same copper piping. The life expectancy of PEX is 30-35 years. So from a "life expectancy" they"ll last about the same. I've been using Pex since the 90's or about 25 years. Never have had any issues with it except for a errant nail during construction that showed up when we put the system under 110lbs of air for 8 hours. We use their manifolds as well and homeowners love the manifolds. So if I were building my own personal house, it would have Pex, not copper.
I can say I have had jobs we were called out on where a national builder used 1/4" copper for a return line on the hot water side so that there was "instant" hot water in the kitchen. The constant flow of hot water in the lines caused pin holes in the copper. Anytime you have hot water and it's losing heat, know that you are losing heat energy and the energy is doing work of some kind. What it was doing was eating the copper from the inside. We simply eliminated the copper return line and in a few cases, installed at the builders expense, a tankless (and worthless in my opinion) water heater under the sink. There was no "instant" hot water even with the heater. We never did find a unit that would yield 140F water for the dishwasher. Found a bunch of them that would really spin the electric meter though.
Unless the copper was done poorly to begin with, 30 years to copper is like yesterday. We recently moved from a house with nearly 50-year-old copper plumbing, and I loved it.
Of course if you live in Florida, you will be told by numerous plumbers that the copper pipes need to go because they corrode in our climate. My house is 48 years old and when I moved in I had some faucets replaced and the first plumber, who I know and trust, told me I should get the whole house repiped in the near future. Ditto for the second opinion. I know copper pipes are supposed to be the best in northern climates (I learned that from Moonstruck ) but not so here.
I did a complete reno on my house 17 years ago. All my water supply lines are copper, which I ran down the center of the house, and then branching to each fixture as needed. When it came to installing my heat runs I switched over to pex, because the majority of those runs ran along the exterior walls. Doesn't take much to burst a copper pipe, where as pex will just expand, and then return to its original shape. I felt better going this route, at least in my mind anyway.
My house was built in 1973 and still has the original copper pipes. I did find one small pinhole leak in the crawlspace that would drip maybe once per hour, and oddly enough it has stopped on its own.
Around here all of the new houses use PEX, it’s even buried under slabs.
Pex gets some shadow of the bad image of PB plastic plumbing. My house, built in 1995 with PB, has few problems so far because we have a well and no chlorine in the water. I have had severe corrosion of a few copper fittings in the system; they were installed incorrectly by the builders. Those were replaced with Shark push to fit and Pex with transitions. Quite the PITA. All the upgrades I have done were with Pex. I did buy a compression tool that works with a Vise Grip. If you are redoing a whole house, buy the crimper.
Part of the PB failure was the concept of continuous runs with no right angle joints where there were 90* turns in the run. These led to overstressed turns. Where there are severe angles, installing metal fittings with crimps is better. The Shark fittings are too expensive for most parts of the installation. Plastic Pex fittings are questionable, to me.
Another consideration with copper in a rework environment is the likelihood of starting a fire while sweating pipe joints. There are anti-flash compounds to prevent that.
My daughter is planning a remodel of her kitchen and 2 baths. I'm going to redo the plumbing all through the house, as it is now it's copper and over 30 years old.
And? There is houses with 100 year old copper, you only replace if you have reason to.
Not enough time has passed yet. There were fitting failures from stuff installed 10 or 15 years ago...something to do with "red brass" but the new material is supposed to be okay.
PEX has been used in Europe for at least 30 years. I was using there in the early 90s... no issues, people love it, fast cheap good.
In a freeze, copper will promptly burst, PEX not so likely. Copper is quite expensive these days. I've had two homes with PEX (each for greater than 7 years). One was a cottage that the basement froze solid in the winter and had a few runs where water remained after draining. Neither place had a problem. At this point in time, I'd go PEX.
BTW, I sweat copper like a pro. 68 consecutive joints in a row, not a single leaker or popper. There's a "method" but not that difficult to grasp.
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) but not so here.
