Customer Reviews for SharkBite 3/4 in. PEX Barb Brass 90-Degree Elbow Fitting

See the attached picture. That is a replacement manifold for a radiant heating system. The old manifold was leaky and the system was partly blocked, with no effective way to flush it since all the valves were frozen. When I inquired with the plumber who knows all these houses ( Levitt neighborhood, hundreds of houses all fitted-out the same weird way ) he would not even return my call! That's how much he didn't want the job. So I decided to bite the bullet and teach myself plumbing. Turns out there are lots of great instructional videos on sweating pipe joints on the YouTubes. I watched a few, and made a some test joints on the workbench, and it was simple. Then I went in the rather cramped linen closet and cut out the old manifold, which you can see on the floor at the right. Onto each cut end I sweated a barbed PEX adapter - six in all. The new manifold is both bigger and opposite-hand or mirror-image of the old one. That meant either installing it backwards, or getting clever. Installing it backwards was a bad option - you'd have to reach around the back to adjust the valves, and when it is running it is hot. So I sat down and started sketching things out, and this is the final result. The whole thing is folded-up so tight that it fit into the original space, and when I was done I simply replaced the shelf above. This installation has 6 adapters, 9 elbows, one tee, one valve, and the manifold itself. There are 16 pieces of PEX tubing of different lengths and sizes, with two joints each, for a total of 32 crimped connections. To do all of this the old-fashioned way in copper and solder would have been a real pain. But with Pex tubing, barbed elbows, and crimp rings, it was easy. Well, as easy as it could be, it still took several hours. But I would much rather be crouched in that small space with the PEX crimper than a torch. My first thought was to bend the tubing, but it is not that flexible, so I resorted to the elbows to keep the installation compact. When I turned the water back on, not one joint leaked, nor has one ever leaked in several years since I built it. The manifold works perfectly, and you wouldn't believe the gunk I flushed out of the system, one loop at a time now that I had working valves. The entire heating system works noticeably better now; rooms that once got no heat are now toasty, and rooms that got to much heat can be throttled-back. This is an example of what you can do YOURSELF with minimal pipe sweating and PEX. Needless to say, I have not called the plumber since. This is the worst job I could imagine doing, and I pulled it off perfectly. Everything since then has been easy by comparison. The one downside of PEX is the startup cost of the tools and materials - a good crimper is not cheap. But once you have it, and a small torch to install the adapters if needed, you can do pretty much anything, including things your plumber wanted nothing to do with !!! These brass elbows are ... brass elbows. They are exactly what they should be, nicely finished with no manufacturing flaws, ready to use.

Rating provided by a verified purchaser

Rating provided by a verified purchaser

Fitting does exactly what it is designed to do.

Work as designed and easy to use.

Worked great, felt more comfortable with these opposed to the plastic.

Rating provided by a verified purchaser

Rating provided by a verified purchaser

Made my job so much easier. Hooked up all new waterlines to mobile home.

it held up well for the new plumbing project that we have.

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Great, really like this product

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worked well and I always feel better with metal vs plastic

Rating provided by a verified purchaser

Rating provided by a verified purchaser

Rating provided by a verified purchaser

Rating provided by a verified purchaser

I searched for Poly pipe fittings and these came up in my search, They do not fit 3/4" black poly pipe! so they went into the plumbing box and hopefully I find a use for them someday.

Works great easy install

Barb performs as expected with no part defects or other issues. Overall good fit and finish.

Rating provided by a verified purchaser

When you’re working with PEX tibing and you need to make a 90° turn this is what you need