The plastic pipes are in wide applications for DWV drain-waste-vent pipes and domestic water supply. The major kinds include:
– it has been produced experimentally during the 19th century, but it did not become realistic to manufacture until during 1926, when Mr. Semon developed the method to plasticize the PVC, making it simpler to process. The PVC pipe started to be man made during the 1940s and has been in wide application for DWV or Drain-Waste-Vents piping during the modernization of Japan and Germany following WWII. During 1950s, the plastics manufacturers in Japan and Western Europe started making ABS or acrylonitrile butadiene styrene pipes. The technique for making PEx or cross-linked polyethylene has been developed in 1950 also. The plastic supply pipes had been increasingly common, with the diversity fittings and materials employed.
– the rigid plastic pipes that are similar to the PVC drain pipes, however, with thicker walls that dealt with the municipal water pressure, started around 1970. The polyvinyl chloride or PVC has become the usual replacement for the metal piping. The PVC must be used for cold water or for venting only. CPVC may be used for cold and hot potable water supply. The connections are created with the solvent and primer cements as being required by code.
– this material has been primarily used in house wares, clinical equipments and food packaging, but ever since during the early 1970s had observed increasing use globally for both domestic cold and hot water. The PP pipes were heat fused, being inapt for the utilization of solvents, mechanical fittings or glues. The PP pipes are often used at green building projects.
– these are normally gray or black and flexible plastic pipes which are attached to the barbed fittings and it is secured in place together with the copper crimp rings. The prime manufacturer of the PBT fittings and tubing has been driven to bankruptcy by the class-action lawsuit through the failures of the system. But, PBT and PB tubing has since come back to the codes and market, typically first for the "exposed locations" like the risers.
– the cross-linked polyethylene method with the mechanically joined fittings using barbs, and the copper rings or crimped steel.
– the plastic polyethylene cisterns, above ground water tank, and underground water tanks, are normally made of the linear polyethylene fitted as the potable water storage tanks, given in green, white and black.
– it is known as the PEX-Al-PEX that is for the PEX/aluminum sandwich, consist of aluminum pipes sandwiched in between layers of the PEX, and linked with the modified brass compression fitting.
The present-day water-supplies system uses the network of the high-pressure pumps, with the pipes in buildings that are now composed of brass, copper, plastics mainly cross-linked PEX or polyethylene, that has been expected to be applied in the 60% of solo family homes or with the other nontoxic materials. Because of its toxicity, lots of cities are moving away from the lead water-supply pipes from 1920 in the US, even though lead pipes had been approved by nationwide plumbing codes in 1980s, and this lead was aided in plumbing solder that is for drinking water up to the moment that it has been banned in 1986. Vent line and drain are made of steel, cast iron, lead and plastics.
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