subject: Plumbing And The Expansion Of Polymer [print this page] As with each industry, there's always a gray patch with materials, with diverse folks indicating failings in others product. Plumbing is not an exception. Varied hot subjects where brought up in the conferences, including the blueprint issue, vermin, growth of Polymer and the separation in the PHACT group between the mono-layered and multi-layered pipe manufactures.
Each polymer manufacturer is responsible in receiving their SABS certification certificate and each one was counseled to guarantee the product was certificated before buying. The major blueprint subject was the Standard 10252, where it states : Plastic piping shall not be rigidly encased in floors, concert slabs or walls" - section 8.4.3.1 - sentence c.
According to Patrick, the final directions draft is to be completed in the following six to eight months for the mono layered manufactures in the polymer material category. Now testing on the piping is being done about each 3-months, to meet the world standard specs. In the draft, PHACT would be handling the issue of Standard 10252. Patrick failed to see any tricky issue that would arise from placing polymer products in floors, concert slabs and walls.
The source said that the R56 and R41 don't exist, although for external reasons, they do still appear on the JASMIC web site. The problem of whether polymer pipes should be wrapped according to this standard was debatable. Tests indicated that the object of wrapping pipes was to stop it from the lime reaction in the cement, occurring in metal pipes. Polymer products don't suffer under the same reaction and thus wrapping pipes in brown paper was futile. He probably did indicate if the standard was to wrap, then it should done In a concrete slab, polymer pipes are available with a plastic sleeve to permit the piping to be slipped out of the slab and replaced, without any damage to concrete.
Patrick announced the multi-layered piping manufactures had decided that PHACT where not moving quick enough regarding new directions, and had left the organisation to form their own. They'd be modelling their blueprint on the same module as the PHACT group. Mono pipes are piping that could be a solid material ,eg polymer, while multi-layer are when the outside and inside layers are a type of polymer and the middle section is a metal.
Questions arose regarding tools in the polymer industry, as each manufacture has designed there own specific tools for their product without any type of standard tooling being created. This causes issues for maintenance plumbers as they would not be able to know which type of piping is used in the building until they arrived on site. Carrying around a tool kit with all the varieties isn't only an unrealistic scenario, but to acquire all the equipment would be costly. Unfortunately PHACT has no solution in this case, but did inform those present that all polymer products are transmission systems and compatible with metal products. He also recommended that plumbing companies create an opportunity from this situation by acquiring all the tools and renting them out.
The question to whether polymer products had issues to expanding wasn't resolved. Case studies of walls cracking due to the material expanding caused by a pressure force was matched with reports of the plastic only expanding to a few millimeters which would hardly affect the surrounding materials.
Another issue that was not resolved was the concern of vermin eating thru the product to get to the water. Patrick explained rats where receptive to moisture which was only at joints that leaked where the issue could appear. It was also brought up a widely known rat poison - Rattix - deals with rat extermination by dehydrating the rodents. They'd either die from the result, or be driving out the building looking for water.
