Hi all, I'm a homeowner with basic DIY plumbing skills. My 1989 house was plumbed with Quest when it was built (4 years before I bought it). I had the whole house professionally replumbed today with PEX.
The plumbers seemed to do a great job and I'm happy overall. This is the only problem I see with the final result ....
Background: The sink in the hallway bath is back to back with the shower/tub in the master bath. When the house was built, the pipes feeding both the sink and the tub were straight up and down, vertical, with no bends. Because the hot and cold would be on opposing sides of each fixture, it was plumbed for the hot/cold to match up with the tub side. On the sink side, the flexible piping that came from the wall valve to the faucet was crisscrossed so that everything matched up (hot/cold) as it should, on either side of the wall.
When they connected the pipes under the house today for the replumb, they hooked up the hot and the cold feeds to the "wrong" side (opposite the way it was before). So now the pipes are plumbed for the sink side. Which means that the corresponding hot/cold pipe is on the wrong side for the tub.
I questioned this too late in the process, when the new pipes were installed straight up and down (no bends) with the hot feed attached to the cold tub faucet and vice versa. "I put it back exactly as it was," was the reply - then the realization hit that they'd attached the wrong feeds in the crawlspace under the house. It was an obvious "uh-oh" moment for the plumbers. Rather than go back under the house and connect it correctly, they decided to crisscross the tub plumbing. That's obviously not as easy to do as it is with the flexible sink pipes. So I wound up with a bunch of elbow joints leading to the tub.
Is this going to be a problem in the future? I feel like all those joints are just a leak in the making. I tend to obsess, so I've decided that I won't worry about it if the overwhelming opinion is that this is OK.
Note: They didn't tear out the wall for this job - I had to remove the drywall after the Quest split and flooded the surrounding area.
Photos of "before" (the gray Quest) and "after" (the white PEX) attached.
The plumbers seemed to do a great job and I'm happy overall. This is the only problem I see with the final result ....
Background: The sink in the hallway bath is back to back with the shower/tub in the master bath. When the house was built, the pipes feeding both the sink and the tub were straight up and down, vertical, with no bends. Because the hot and cold would be on opposing sides of each fixture, it was plumbed for the hot/cold to match up with the tub side. On the sink side, the flexible piping that came from the wall valve to the faucet was crisscrossed so that everything matched up (hot/cold) as it should, on either side of the wall.
When they connected the pipes under the house today for the replumb, they hooked up the hot and the cold feeds to the "wrong" side (opposite the way it was before). So now the pipes are plumbed for the sink side. Which means that the corresponding hot/cold pipe is on the wrong side for the tub.
I questioned this too late in the process, when the new pipes were installed straight up and down (no bends) with the hot feed attached to the cold tub faucet and vice versa. "I put it back exactly as it was," was the reply - then the realization hit that they'd attached the wrong feeds in the crawlspace under the house. It was an obvious "uh-oh" moment for the plumbers. Rather than go back under the house and connect it correctly, they decided to crisscross the tub plumbing. That's obviously not as easy to do as it is with the flexible sink pipes. So I wound up with a bunch of elbow joints leading to the tub.
Is this going to be a problem in the future? I feel like all those joints are just a leak in the making. I tend to obsess, so I've decided that I won't worry about it if the overwhelming opinion is that this is OK.
Note: They didn't tear out the wall for this job - I had to remove the drywall after the Quest split and flooded the surrounding area.
Photos of "before" (the gray Quest) and "after" (the white PEX) attached.