Aurora Micro Apartments,
Shoreline, WA,
USA

When it came to choosing a plumbing system, the project team chose an Uponor AquaPEX plumbing system because of the reliability and ease of installation of Uponor PEX. For a few of the installers it was their first time working with Uponor PEX, so they experienced a short-lived learning curve.

“Once you’ve tried making a fitting two times, you’ve got it. It just becomes common sense,” said Roman Hudson, foreman at Wolfe Plumbing. “The new Milwaukee M18™ FORCELOGIC™ ProPEX® expansion tool operates the same as the smaller tool — just pull the trigger and let it go.”

Because of the flexibility of Uponor PEX pipe and the painless connections of ProPEX fittings, the team was able to speed up the installation time.

“PEX is more forgiving and it’s lighter than copper,” said Hudson. “We used to use CPVC, stainless and copper pipes, but ProPEX fittings, man, it’s quick and fast. Once you started figuring it out, PEX is faster.”

The team used Uponor Design Services to ensure a seamless plumbing design. Uponor’s design engineers and the project engineers worked in tandem to design an efficient system.

“The cool thing about Uponor Design Services is, because it’s their product, they’ll push the engineering to the max,” said Bert Shepardson, project manager at Wolfe Plumbing. “That’s what allows us to use smaller pipe sizes and have more favorable installs.”