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- Verified Buyer
This package is a great way for a DIY'er to get started in the world of PEX. Up to this point, my only experience with plumbing has been copper and welding with solder, which can at times be intimidating, especially when mating new copper piping with old copper in an old home.During my kitchen remodel, I moved our kitchen sink to a new area for a slight design change, but that caused us to need to move all the PVC and Copper to another wall in the room. The new copper came together nicely, but when trying "mate" with the old copper, it didn't go well at all. I couldn't get the old copper to "seat" all the way in new copper T's or even Sharkbite T's without having to break out the Dremel. This specifically would still be an issue with mating the old copper with PEX, but the issues I was having forced me to do research which lead me to PEX in the first place. I decided to give PEX a try and see if it would work.Boy did it work.The first thing I noticed was just the "Dry Fit" process. Cutting copper is a wonderful workout for the forearms. Measure your length, get the copper pipe cutter on, tighten, turn two or three times, tighten, turn two or three more times, tighten, turn two or three time..... you get the picture. With PEX, measure your length and cut. Done.Cut all your pieces, put in all your connectors, and see how everything fits. If one of your pieces was a bit too long, just do a quick snip to cut a little off and dry fit again. If everything looks good, put your clamps in place and crimp. It's really that simple.No Welding, just crimping. That's the real time saver. Not having to make sure the copper lines are drained of water, not having to have a torch and solder to worry about, not having to worry about catching things on fire because a weld you need to make is in an awkward place near combustibles. All those worries are gone.Had I known about PEX sooner, I wouldn't have bothered with copper at all. I would have just ran all new PEX instead.I can imagine a plumber that works with PEX on a regular basis could probably run water lines in new construction home in a single day. If you had a rough idea of where you needed water to be, you could hammer it out in no-time.I'm a PEX believer.The cutting tool works very well, cuts the PEX like butter. The crimping tool to me seems "solid", has a nice "weight" to it. Was very simple to use and the long handles allow you a lot of leverage when crimping.My only recommendation to make this kit better would be to also include a set of brass T's as well, just so as a DIY your prepared for more situations.Overall, great investment.