In another case, Aquatherm specified strict temperature and pressure limitations. Often we’ll find the failed piece deformed inside the clamp. Further, the materiel is soft so there was little feedback for the mechanics accustomed to using a torque wrench. In practice the pipes are sized in the Metric system and the clamps were sized in the Imperial measurement system. Therefore, it is tremendously difficult to assign a percentage of the blame on any single party especially where the absence of any one condition may result in no failure.Īquatherm had claimed that standard pipe clamps could be used with loosely specified modifications. The problem is that each of the litigating parties may be responsible for at least one of the vulnerable conditions. If only one (or maybe two) of the vulnerabilities are present, the likelihood of failure seems substantially lower.
If all three vulnerabilities are present, then the likelihood of failure is very high. The contractor is pointing at the manufacturer who in turn is pointing back at the owner/operator who is pointing alternately at the contractor and the manufacturer.įor the record, I like PPR for many reasons, but there appears to be 3 main vulnerabilities with PPR: the manner in which it is clamped, the temperature of the water, and the water chemistry – specifically the presence of copper ions. Many of these are winding up in the courts in what looks like the three-way shoot out at the end of the Clint Eastwood movie, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Recently a string failures started to appear first in Australia and now increasingly in the US.Īfter fire, water damage is the most expensive peril that a building owner may face. After a period of reportedly reliable performance in Europe, Aquatherm began to market the product in Australia, Canada, the US, and elsewhere.
Domestic water supply applications of Polypropylene (PPR) have been commercialized largely under the Aquatherm trade name and manufactured in Germany.
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