Rigid ProPress fittings
Rigid ProPress fittings
(OP)
Does anyone have any experience with the Rigid ProPress crimp pipe fittings?
http://www.propresssystem.com/
A contractor is submitting it as an alternative to soldered copper for a chilled water hydronic system. I'm leaning towards approving it, but thought I'd ask if anyone has worked with this system before. The biggest disadvantages I can see is that joint could be overlooked and not crimped. That's a workmanship/inspection issue, but is it possible that a fitting that was not crimped cold still hold during a pressure test?
(A search has shown that TBP has used these fittings before, but I'm not sure if it's possible to contact him directly through this forum.)
http://www.propresssystem.com/
A contractor is submitting it as an alternative to soldered copper for a chilled water hydronic system. I'm leaning towards approving it, but thought I'd ask if anyone has worked with this system before. The biggest disadvantages I can see is that joint could be overlooked and not crimped. That's a workmanship/inspection issue, but is it possible that a fitting that was not crimped cold still hold during a pressure test?
(A search has shown that TBP has used these fittings before, but I'm not sure if it's possible to contact him directly through this forum.)





RE: Rigid ProPress fittings
The biggest concerns are the cost of the fittings, the selection of fittings available from the manufacturer, and the wholesalers stocking levels in some areas.
The biggest advantages are speed (the huge labour savings more than offsets the cost of the fittings), you can make a joint even when faced with a trickle of water that would prevent soldering (this can be a real problem when repairing or modifying a system in which the valves don't hold), and there's no flame or heat involved.
RE: Rigid ProPress fittings
I think I'm going to approve them, provided that they can show that they will have enough fittings on hand to complete the job.
RE: Rigid ProPress fittings
The guys that have complaints tend to be sticklers for appearance of their work (not the wrong attitude, by any means), and in the larger sizes, the crimping tool can torque the fittings slightly, and the resulting assembly sometimes isn't as "pretty" as they are used to acheiving with soldered joints.
The tool has an internal mechanism that counts the number of crimps, and after so many, alerts the user that it must be re-calibrated within so many more crimps. If it's not taken in for the calibration check after the magic number is reached, it'll just shut itself down.
RE: Rigid ProPress fittings
RE: Rigid ProPress fittings
You could always stipulate that if there's a problem, the contractor has to keep things moving forward, even if he has to pull-in 2 or 3 times the bodies with B-tanks to stay on schedule.
RE: Rigid ProPress fittings