Zurn PEX: the Ticking Time Bomb Behind Your Walls

Lake Benedict, MNThe retired doctor from Minnesota must have been thanking his lucky stars that he was home when his upstairs bathroom sprung a leak above the ceiling. He was there to shut the water off before thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars might have been done as a result of a defective Zurn PEX brass fitting.

Others haven't been so lucky, and more are joining a class action lawsuit against Zurn Industries, alleging a defect in the brass fittings that join lengths of PEX, or cross-linked polyethylene pipe, together.

Few in the industry, including plumbers, have anything bad to say about the actual PEX pipe, which is a flexible and less expensive alternative to far more expensive copper products. The flexibility is a godsend, given the prior requirement to accomplish literally hundreds of cuts and joins in a typical structure, while working with a rigid product like copper. PEX, in contrast, can be easily threaded and dramatically cuts down on installation time, as well as cost. PEX is also thought to be a worthy improvement on the problem-prone polybutylene piping.

The problem, is when the hardy PEX pipe is joined: the latter is accomplished by a brass fitting, which has been known to fail thanks to a process known as dezincification, which is a corrosion of the brass.

However, beyond that our doctor in Minnesota found a different problem: he writes that upon examining replacement Zurn brass fittings at a plumbing supply store, he found that every fitting had defective thread tapping, with cracks at four spacings of the thread tapper. "Now I'm a retired MD," he writes, "but I have a large workshop and do a lot of machine work and welding," so he had a fair idea of what he was looking at. A machinist in the store who overheard his observation confirmed that in his view, the thread tapper was rotating at too fast a rate, adding that he thought the brass to be of substandard quality and likely had too much zinc in the mix, compared to copper.

"In his words," the retired MD writes, "the product was junk."

That would explain what they found when they inspected the origin of the leak in the retired physician's beautiful lakefront home on Benedict Lake. After removing tile to get at the problem, it was determined that a large jet of water was coming from the side of the brass fitting connecting the hot water supply to the shower control. "I have never heard of, or seen a half inch brass fitting fail in this way," he writes.

Failures of this kind can do devastating damage to a building, and contents. Thankfully, the damage to this gentleman's home was limited to about $1000, but others haven't been so lucky. That's because Murphy's Law will always dictate that disaster happens when you're not home, and no one is there to take remedial action.

And plumbing disasters can take many forms. It could be a gusher that happens the minute you close the door behind you to go shopping. Or it could be a slow leak that you can't see and will never hear, because it's behind a wall somewhere. Such a leak can lead to a more catastrophic failure, or introduce humidity and unwanted moisture into the home, risking the development of mold, mildew, and other moisture-laden conditions that can weaken a home's structure over time, not to mention putting you and your family at risk for your health.

Ever wonder why plumbers are so highly paid? Simple—they are entrusted in making permanent, leak-free connections so that you will be spared calamity from water going where it shouldn't. Plumbers are expensive professionals, and good ones are worth every single penny.

It is assumed, however, that they are working with quality materials. A plumber, like any professional, is only as good as his skill, his work ethic and the products he is given to do the job. In the end, it doesn't matter how good the plumber is…if he is making a connection with a failure-prone brass fitting that has allegedly been manufactured on the cheap, you have paid good money for nothing and have unwittingly invited disaster into your home.

It's a disaster that may be brewing right now, and one that you may never see, as all that plumbing is hidden behind the walls, and under the insulation in the attic. Further, opting to replace that plumbing in an effort to avoid disaster (assuming you have Zurn PEX plumbing in your home) will be prohibitively expensive given where it is. Walls, and ceilings would have to be breached and repaired, all in an effort to give you peace of mind.

And therein lay the problem for a lot of folks. An actual leak is an obvious sign of trouble. However, what can be worse is the knowledge that you may have a potentially defective product in your home that's known to fail. That equates to a ticking time bomb that you can't see, can't locate and can't hear.

Living with that fear, can be just as much a nightmare as dealing with an actual plumbing disaster when it happens. Meanwhile, it has been reported that after paying out a number of claims for failed fittings, Zurn is allegedly no longer doing so.

Thus, more worried homeowners are turning to the courts. A couple in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, registered one class action last August and yet another lawsuit is seeking class action status.

The assistance of a Zurn PEX lawyer could mean the difference between having the resources to deal with disaster, or mopping up on your own…