In Florida, on Merritt Island just south of Cape Canavaral, a custom home is finishing construction and Speedfit along with Speedfit PEX was used for the majority of plumbing connections, again whole house. Developer Mike DeChristopher is building his dream house on the water, a 4,250 sq. ft. one-and-a half story house with three bedrooms and two indoor jacuzzi’s. Mike didn’t want to lay any piping under the home’s slab because of problems he’s experienced in the past; he had a time consideration on his hands (work had to be done after hours), and he didn’t like the current price of copper.
When approached by John Guest USA’s local rep about using Speedfit for the house, DeChristopher, who with his partner normally direct use of copper and some CPVC of late, decided to go with plastic Speedfit after conducting his own research on the product and its use. “I did my homework on the pros and cons,” Mike says, “and I couldn’t find any cons.” Tom Walker Plumbing of Coco Beach did the installation, again a first-time us of plastic. The crew at Tom Walker has had problems with brass fittings and CPVC leaks in the past, so the opportunity to use Speedfit helped open up a new product option to them.
“Speedfit is great compared to copper,” says Dave Bell of Tom Walker Plumbing. He figures using Speedfit over copper cost just a quarter of copper’s price tag for such a large home and saved a quarter of normal installation. To get a better sense of just how much time his crew saved, Dave gives a simple example: in one of the house’s bathrooms it took his crew just 30 minutes to complete the hot and cold water plumbing connections. Using copper the same work would have taken half a day. Bell estimates that it took just 16 hours to finish the plumbing connections in Mike’s house, as compared to probably eighty hours – or two weeks of work – using copper. “We’re going to take a good look at using Speedfit again,” he says.
Mike DeChristopher is sold on Speedfit. “I’m impressed with it,” he comments. Considering the time savings and price of copper, Speedfit should definitely be used.” He and his partner intend to use it on next jobs. Regarding the concern about leakage, Mike has this to say: “I’m confident of the product because, as I see it, several things have to fail for a leak to occur – either the pipe insertion was not fully made or the collet gripper and O-ring have to fail. This is a well engineered product and I don’t see that happening.”