Damaged pex lines

[JandC]

Woke up this morning to find water on kitchen floor, area about 1 foot by 3 feet. Had been raining and blowing all night so thought I had slide leak or something but turns out it was coming from island. Found both hot and cold pex lines that go to the kitchen faucet had been scared. The cold side was leaking. Why it hadn't leaked prior to this I don't know. Picked up a couple of compression pex shut-off valves, cut out the bad sections, and installed to get water back on. Had to hunt around for a small section of 1/2" pex because I was too cheap to buy a 5' section. Buddy had a piece but before I could get back in business had to put stuff away for company arriving. Somebody at the factory must have nicked both lines with a knife or something. Also picked up three water alarms which Menards had on sale. Put on under each sink and one behind toilet.

[DQDick]

Sorry to hear about your troubles, but you can't go wrong with shutoff valves and water alarms. It's just much more fun to do the work because you want to rather than have to.

[JandC]

Yep, you are right about it being better doing it when you want to, instead of when you have to. I had read the recent posts about you guys installing shut-off valves and that was on my written to-do list. I would rather it be a plumbing issue rather than a slide or roof leak any day though.

[scott-pati]

Had a similar issue with the hot/cold connections in ours. Used the Monty twice and had no issues, but the third time I went to grab a roll of paper towel form under the sink and found all 6 rolls were soaked. It seems the connections to the sink were not tight enough and the higher water pressure at this park must have been enough pressure to cause it to leak.

We were lucky to have the paper towels under their to soak up all that water.

[WaltBennett]

PEX has been known for years to be problematic unless installed correctly. It's really great when it is, but if joints aren't crimped right or tubing is scored (like yours) it can be a lot of grief. Shark bite and the like fittings are really great for DYI work because the tools to do the other way are really expensive (unless you're going into the plumbing business!).

[PackerFan]

Hi Joe, Glad you found that problem early and was an easy fix. Heard of a person who had the same type of thing happen to them. They were traveling and forgot to turn off their water pump switch before leaving. When they stopped for lunch they found everything soaked because the water pump was running and emptied their entire fresh water tank into their livingroom.

Hope you guys got home safe and sound!

[JandC]

Finished the PEX repair today. Two of the valves had to be redone because I had not cut enough damaged portions out. All is good for now but there is a tiny nick in the chrome flex feeder hose and I suspect that will let go one of these days. I contacted Keystone Customer Service and will see what I can get done. Actually even though I have about $50.00 in parts to redo this I would settle for a new faucet set for when that flex hose goes. We will see.