Hep20 fittings.

[CES]

Not defending Hep in any manner as I believe they are big enough to stick up for themselves but I've came across a few "failures" like this and discovered all manner of faults including, no inserts at all, JG inserts used with Hep2o, green ring been demounted and fitted the wrong way round, no o-ring, green ring and o-ring incorrectly positioned (wrong sequence).. you get my drift.
Personally I think that if a fitting is demountable then its going to fail at some point, mainly because unless you fitted it the first time and no-one has fiddled about with it beforehand you don't know how many times its been taken apart to see how it works and then reassembled. This new generation of Hep2o can be demounted but the internals cannot be taken apart. I believe they have a 50 year guarantee on the fittings now as well.
But in saying that, I try and avoid plastic if I can as it looks really ugly and buckles when its hot.. and their new Hep2o fittings are easily taken apart when you can get to them, but try demounting a 22mm elbow under a floor from above...its not easy..

 

[Dannypipe]

I don't personally think their new range is that easy to demount. I had no idea there was now a 50 year warranty on the fittings!

It's all well and good doing it on the pipe, but in normal circumstances, it's not going to fail, so why not put a warranty on it. Fittings is another matter.

It looks as though they will wriggle out of any responsibility anyway, so is their guarantee worth anything?

I've discovered as I'm sure we all have, old fittings that are incorrectly installed, as you say with no inserts and bits mixed up...and they've held up for years. The problem is, in the case of the OP (which is years back now) that his whole house was plumbed in a fitting that seemed to be faulty. That's a scary concept and would certainly worry me if it was my house.

 

[bennygas]

just echoing what some of the previous posters have said - this is news to me, and I've put loads of the stuff in. shockingly bad. just waiting for the phone to ring now.

 

[CES]

I agree with you Danny about the guarantee issue, most by manufacturers are worthless anyway. I've found the new hep fittings a pain to demount but then they brought out the new style "key" and its a lot easier, although when put onto copper its a struggle, especially in awkward places.
I rarely use plastic anyway but if I were to be using it more frequently I would probably use a permanent crimp type these days. Not as convenient I suppose but at least you will get relative piece of mind.

 

[AWheating]

non demountable fittings like polyplumb with full stainless steel grab rings are probably the best to use imo.

 

[CES]

Are those the same as the old Acorn fittings you used to get?

 

[AWheating]

not 100% sure. been a long time since ive seen an acorn fitting.

 

[Guest123]

As each one fails replace it with JG Speedfit and Speedfit inserts.

You can't do this if it's Hep pipe and not JG pipe as JG will invalidate the warranty for using their fittings on another manufacturers pipe.

 

[WHPES]

IMO the new style Hep fittings are a pain. Used them once and never again. Our merchants have stopped stocking them now in favour of polyplumb anyway due to lack of demand.

Will stick to polyplumb thank you very much.