Copper and flexible plumbing (PER)

To move my sink, I used flexible tubes. Since I live in France, I used PER (Polyéthylène Réticulé) but I bet you can find a local equivalent without much trouble. Those flexible tubes came in diameters of 12 and 16. Since I was only moving my sink, the twelve diameter tubes sufficed. I bought tubes which were inside strong protecting tubes (which therefore look as if they are much broader). Using a slide caliper - use google images do determine what I'm talking about if necessary; this hint applies to all words that you do not understand - one can determine the thickness of the copper pipes. Mine turned out to be 14 mm thick (in some places, but in others they were 10 mm and 12 mm thick, so be careful in attempting to determine the thickness without proper measuring instrument). Therefore, I needed pieces connecting my 14 mm thick copper and 12 mm flexible tubes. The difficult part is identifying the right pieces. Make sure you go to a do-it-yourself shop with qualified employees and a huge collection of components. Don't bother to attempt to solder copper. The american/instant or biconal connections will do the job just fine.

To extend my copper network, I closed the relevant fossets, checked that no water was running through anymore, and opened up the copper network. To do that, it turned out that my 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 and 23 as well as my adjustable wrench came in handy. I removed all that was on the end of the copper tube, and used my connection. To put it on, I first pushed/screwed it on the flexible, the one the copper (respecting the direction of all the individual components). The hard part is to make sure you pushed it far enough. (I removed part of the protective layer, cut it along the length, and put it back on after the connection was made.) All the rest is an easy exercise in screwing tight all components, and tighter still when you see that the connection leaks.

On the other end, I connected my PER tubing to the fossets. Again, the hard part is only to identify the right connecting pieces. My fosset came with a flexible feeding tube that ended in a female unidentified end. A good trick is to bring the flexible tube along to your local shop and either ask for help, or when the relevant components are in plastic bags, you can attempt to screw them on in the shop, even with the plastic bag still on them. The relevant connection turned out to be PER 12 to 12/17 (in French nomenclature). Again, after identifying the right connector, the only further annoying part is to push the tubes far enough up the connector, and the rest is an easy turning of the wrench.

The PER site http://plomberie.per.free.fr/ was useful, but not exhaustive.