PEX is Cross-Linked ("X-linked") PolyEthylene, and is used in radiant-floor heating and potable water systems. You may have noticed it in newer houses where the hot and cold water are run through red and blue plastic tubes instead of the old familiar PVC or copper. Those colored plastic tubes are stronger, more flexible PEX.
PEX can't be easily solvent-welded like PVC can, so plumbers use crimp rings to join PEX to fittings. PEX is more flexible than PVC but it's still pretty hard, so hose clamps have a tough time with it, even for temporary installations. I used hose clamps in a few places to do some tests, and they basically exploded when I tried to torque them down enough to stop the leaks.
I started out with an inexpensive PEX crimper from Lowe's Home Improvement designed to be compressed with 10" channel-lock pliers.
There's nothing wrong with this crimper if you only need to do a couple of crimps. But I can tell you, they're stretching it a bit when they say you should use 10" pliers. Yeah, I was able to get good crimps with them, but it often took several tries (a big no-no with crimp rings) and I had to squeeze so hard that my hands were sore the next day. I really should have been using 12" or larger pliers. Also, it's a little awkward gripping the heavy crimper with pliers and making sure they don't slip off the small lip on the crimper.
After doing 7 or 8 crimps with this thing, I RAN back to Lowe's and happily paid the extra money for their professional crimper! I'm going to have way too many crimps in this project to put up with a cheap tool.
I also had to learn how to sweat copper fittings, which is something I've managed to avoid so far in life! ...Adding yet another skill and some new tools for this weekend project...
I must admit, I called on my friend Matt to do the "risky" soldering (on the fan-coil unit and the balancing valve, neither of which I particularly wanted to damage), but I did manage to use my new torch and skills on a couple of fittings!
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