To many homeowners copper piping stands for the very best money can buy for their hot and cold water plumbing supplies. Just because copper has been used so widely for such a long time it does not mean it is the best material out there. Copper has serious negatives. In the face of no alternative, consumers had to simply accept shortcomings which are:
- While the use of lead was outlawed in plumbing joints back in the 1970’s, build up of bacteria, sediments and other materials inside pipes reduces the inside opening of pipes considerably
- Joints are sweated together with open flames – have you ever watched a plumber angling into tight corners, sweating together pipes and in the process charring or partially burning surrounding wood beams?! It happens more often than most consumers know…this is where plumbing can be outright dangerous business!
- Systems always fail at their weakest points: Joints… and there will be many including tough to get to joints inside walls.
In Europe copper is considered antiquated. There, green and/or blue piping systems such as the one made by Aquatherm Pipe are considered the best piping systems. When you study Aquatherm you are likely to agree:
For starters, the pipes made of a material called “Fusiolen” plus some color pigments and stabilizers are heat fused. No open flames are used during installation and no joints are left between pieces. Instead a harmless heat treatment chemically bonds the material into one chemically uniform pipe.
Aquatherm pipes allow for significant higher flow rates and have much reduced scaling on the inside of pipe walls. This is why pipe diameters can often be reduced resulting in cost savings.
Aquatherm pipes are VOC – free, have no harmful chemicals and can be recycled in most places (depending on your local recycling regs). They are not only green in color they are indeed truly green building products.
Another nice –to-have is the fact that banging in metal water pipes commonly known as water hammer does not happen in polypropylene Aquatherm pipes.
Here in the US, we now have so-called Pex tubing. It’s made of cross-linked polyethylene and basically functions like Aquatherm. Pex joints are chemical fusions so no leaks can occur. Thus it can be run “point-to-point” from the basement manifold directly to sinks etc.
Plumbers’ jobs are made easy by Pex’ red and blue lines – red for hot and blue for cold water. How much easier can it get?! Pex tubing and Aquatherm are indeed innovative products that improve the quality of your home.