CPVC OK To Support New Tub Faucet Spout ?

[buckeye95]

All,

I'm in the middle of a bathroom renovation and almost done with the plumbing. Based on the tight quarters and my lack of sweating skills, I have decided to go ahead and use CPVC pipe, and have already installed it on the supply lines and shower head line. My question is regarding the use of CPVC for the short run from the control valve to the bath faucet. The run is only about 10" down out of the valve to a 90 degree elbow, then out to the faucet. The faucet head itself has a threaded female connection.

Would it be feasible to use CPVC for all this as well ? My concern is that CPVC does not seem as solid as copper (obviously, being plastic), so I'm not sure if I'm taking a big risk that if the faucet gets hit hard, fallen on, etc, that I might have a greater risk of cracking CPVC connections behind the wall. Granted, the durock and tile (once fitted) will offer some protection against vertical stresses, and once the faucet is installed the only risk should be the connection getting pulled "out" of the wall somehow (as the faucet itself will prevent the CPVC from being stressed by being pushed in towards the wall). Additionally, the area where the connections are located are behind a removable panel, so I should have access if there is an issue (and know about it quickly, if water stops coming out of the shower).

I have considered making it copper, but my main concern is the threaded end inside the faucet. Once the wall and tile are in, I don't have much margin for error when sweating the 1/2" copper to threaded male copper adaptor on. Additionally, I think that if I don't get the orientation of the adaptor right, the faucet will not point down when fully tightened. This can be easily be resolved with CPVC by tightening the CPVC to female adaptor in the faucet first, dry fitting the pipe to the right length, then gluing it all together.

Any comments ?

Thanks in advance

Pete
Buckeye95

[JimD]

Pete,

I do not remember how I did this but I put a tub/shower in the upstairs guest room. The supply tubing is CPVC but I don't like the plastic pipe for the shower head or the tub spout. You can do the same thing with copper that you describe with CPVC, however. Make it up and then take it out and solder at least the vertical pipe to the adapter outside the wall. You should be able to do at least the elbow too and possibly the whole thing. Even if you have to solder the horizontal pipe to the elbow after you screw into the valve, you will be far enough away from the valve that you should not damage it. To be safe, however, I would probably turn the water off and pull the plastic guts of the valve - unless I could solder it all up outside the wall which seems possible.

Plastic would probably work. I just do not like the flexing. It doesn't break when it flexes, it just flexes. The tub fill is a good place to do solder connection if you are a bit leary because it will never see full pressure. It is much less likely to leak. Soldering involves the same principals as CPVC. You have to get things clean (with copper that is a steel brush or sandpaper), flux it, then heat it enough to flow the solder into the joint. It takes longer than plastic but I don't think it's significantly harder.

If you did it in plastic and decided it buged you, you could cut it out and still put in copper. You could do the same with copper but it would be a little harder to cut out.

Jim

[scorrpio]

Well, I would use copper, drop-ear elbows, and blocking installed at spout and showerhead heights to which these drop elbows would be secured. NPT thread always gives you at least one turn of wiggle space to orient the fixture properly. And you can trim and solder copper just as precisely as you can glue CPVC.