I thought PVC has no problem with UV or the sun but not heat. Heated it melt like icecream. Infact PVC is the best plastic against UV.

ABS plastic will melt with sulpheric acid but ABS is very strong and unlike PVC heat is not a problem but of course you dont use it for hot water piping. ABS can take load and use underground and withstand weight and pressure. ABS is the pipe you must not expose to sun/VU it will disintegrate.

If you need a strong pressure cold pipe use ABS for pump in the wall for example. PVC class 7 will reduce volume flow due to its very thick layer. You dont use stainless steel or copper pipe for cold pipe it is very expensive, not only the pipe the joints as well many times over the price of PVC and ABS.

For meter main going underground to house use poly as it is flexible you can bend and turn around it and there is no joint. For underground never have any joints there. It should be one long pipe from meter to the other end surface up. You will never have problem leaking underground. From there you either use PVC or ABS for internal distribution. If you use PVC or ABS for underground you got to connect and when there are joints there are future troble. Same goes for S steel and copper not only it is expensive you cannot have long pipe but need to join. Joining is always no no no for areas you cannot access.

Use stainless steel joints at the end pipe (example) from wall outlets to connect to your taps, toilets, basin, etc. Becasue these "heads"at one time or other you need to replace the taps and to unscrew or rescrew on PVC and ASB you could use too much force and break the thread.

Copper is easy to install and connect and to disconnect and yet cheaper than stainless steel for hot water supply. But never step on it or bend it walking over. It shouild be on roof top or wall.

Everything has its uses.

Underground you tanam at least 2 feet underground.

1. PVC cheap if have to exposed to sun cheapest and msot reliable is PVC. No problem one.
2. ABS cheap for pressure potable WATER pipe inside wall
3. Stainless steel for hot and weighted areas that some weight on top or run over.
4. Copper cheap and flexible easy fix hot water pipe.
5. Poly long distance uses easy to lay.

If you dig and it pecah you have to use heavy mechinary to do that. And if ;you can pecah it mean it is accessible so no problem fixing it.

Most plumbers dont go to school learning thru experience and hearsay of peers.

Your way of piping save one piping and the best is it is auto no need to shut off main supply to have tank supply. But dont you have problem with low pressure with one way valves and the valves after some time like 3 to 5 years get jammed and need replacement?

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Added on February 24, 2012, 1:07 pmNo problem changing "syabas" pipe outside before meter. Syabas shoiuld have replace all the GI pipes that cause dirty rusty water. When there is no water supply and when supply resume all the rust will be flush out into our house that is why we need whole house filter.

You should choose other than the sand rocket filter. Somehow the tiny sand will get into your house piping, into water tank, heater tank, blocking taps, etc. I replaced my sand filter with simply cheap acrylic filters for the whole house.

This post has been edited by stevie8: Feb 24 2012, 01:07 PM

Here is this filter cheap and easy to replace cartridge (the filter).


You can find this filter in supermarket like tesco. Price from RM10 to RM50. Buy the one with double "O" ring. The single "O" ring leak easily and have to be tighten very hard and difficult to open. I bought RM10 and now replaced with RM28 with double O ring and the female socket is made of brass as you can see from the pix above. The filter is also cheap. For 10 micron type I pay rm12 for 5 pieces. sometimes offered 7 pieces for the same price. The 5 micron is more expensive, 2 times the price of 10 micron and is thicker and denser. With 10 microns you can see rust dirt getting into the filter center/middle layer whereas dirt cannot be seen at the middle layer of the 5 micron filter.

As you know filter will reduced the flow rate of water when it clogged or partially clogged with dirts. What I do is to have 3 of it installed parallel. See pix below


I used to change the filter once every 3 months or sometimes 6 months and at times I forget when was the last time I changed them so I based on visual since it is acrylic and transparent. Now what I do is I chnage one filter at a time not all 3 and do it once a month to make sure the filters are fully or maximized used. As you know water will take the least resistance so it will not slow the flow. Just remember to change on every begining of the month. The first filter in the row will be Jan,Apr,Jul,Oct; the 2nd Feb,May,Aug,Nov and 3rd Mar,Jun,Sep,Dec. When I missed a month, I skip that filter so not to confused myself and cheat and save one filter hahahaha...

Try not to save buying 10 microns type. I now use 5 microns filters. Remember to install the stop valves. You need to shut off water supply and also prevent backflow when changing filters.

Hahaha, you are one smart fello. Alge will grow only when I shut it off. Our tap water has chlorine and that kill any micro organism. I shut off one of it and no long algea grow. Just dont know how algea can get in??? And yes under the sun. This filter housing can take sun heat and UV.

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Added on February 24, 2012, 10:13 pmFor RM12 I can get 4 pcs 5 microns in Jalan Pasar, Tesco or Giant and pasar malam. You could have bought from a shop in jusco? who specialised in water filter. those people sell in small quantity and also buy in small quantity of course have to mark up high. You can buy from me if you want to half price rm6 a pc. I'll buy from tesco and re-sell you okie?

Didn't I show you the pix how to overcome low pressure? Look and study the pix ok?

This post has been edited by stevie8: Feb 24 2012, 10:14 PM

It is dark. will do tomorrow

Agreed there are many brands and I also come across those expensive ones. The important thing is the brown dirt didn't show up at the middle/center of the filter cartridge, meaning the dirt did not pass thru. For sand filter it is 10 microns to 20 microns and if you dont backwash often the rust dirt will get into your house. Back wash take too much time and a lot of water wasted and can never backwash completely unless the water pressure is very high and you backwash a few times one go. If you are a sand filter user you will know when you back wash the dirty water come out and in a few minutes the water turn clear but when you backwash again immediately brown (not as brown as first time backwash) water coming out again. That mean the backwash is not effecient.

Sand filter will reduce flow and pressure. And most of all you got to backwash weekly, not monthly. One sand filter RM1xxx you can buy many many many......... filter cartridges over many years beside the troble to backwash and wasted water that you could use to shower plants. For all these reason plus sand getting into my tap, tanks, washing machine, etc that is why I go for this simple yet effective solution. When face with problem we are push to be creative.

For condo you might want to use two in parallel, I used to use 4 in parallel. Because have to change 4 so I reduced it to 3 and now to 2 only becasue the flow and water pressure was not much affected and my areas water pressure is high 40 to 60 psi. That is why I said algae grow when I shut one off. Becaue of that I cut them off and now use two. For areas with low water pressure use 3 or 4. The more in parallel the more complicated and space required to fix them.

Use a bit of imagination you can have parallel for apartment too. There got to be a way when you have the will. Why not take a pic and I might be able to give you some idea.

You are right "rough face" but that is 10 micron type. Not good. I also tried the string line type, yes it is better last longer, not easily clogged but still it is 10 microns. When clogging and pressure is a problem use more in parallel. In my areas there are ppl using only one at the meter because we have no pressure and flow problem.

Hai ya what same like me la? I use the charcoal for my drinking water filter. RM10 only a piece. It also absorbs chlorine and chemicals. You will know it is time to change when the water smell chlorine but I change it early. Cheap ma. In fact it can last a year according to its recommended volume. This are activated carbon block make from coconut shells. The best activated carbon as recommended and widely use in US for water purification use together with RO. In fact WHO recommended it to be save to drink once water passed the activated carbon filter.

Hi Jin,

We are out of topic. Anyway a promise is a promise, see pix below
click pix 1 to see waterflow direction on the pix


From the pix you can see there suppose to have 3 filters but I cut off one. 2 is enough. I also have a pressure meter installed to check water pressure how much it drop when turned on taps in the house. usually drop less than 10psi from 40 to 35 or from 60 to 55.

The filter is 3/4 inch pipe female, to connect it to the flexible hose I use a reducer to 1/2 inch male. The reason I use this type of stainless steel flexible hose is because the diameter is as big as the copper tube and will have better flow if I were to use the normal cheaper flexible hose. Look at the pix below and compare.



This post has been edited by stevie8: Feb 25 2012, 01:55 PM

Go buy one foot ABS pipe and one ABS socket joint and buy one bottle acid from hardware shop. Pour the concentrated acid onto them and see if it melt. Why buy 2? What is the point of having ABS pipe that is acid resistance and yet the joints are not. So be awared.

Go to where there are at least 2 hardware shops and best is side by side. Go to one that has many customers/plumbers that frequent the shop. Anyway these things are not expensive, labour is.

But if you got hot water, from 3/4 to half in you got to wait 2 time longer for hot water to come out, waste a lot of water.

Main from meter is 3/4 inch pipe and at the meter it is 1/2 inch. No point having 1 1/4 then to 2 inch it wont increase pressure, waste big pipe and joints of big pipe is more expensive and dig deeper to tanam. It sholuld be 3/4 inch all the way till it branch out to every outlet point and 1 inch to pump and from pump you can use 1 inch and branch out to half inch to every outlet or from tank you can use big pipe since the pressure is low.

Wow, big house. From the diagram it is bigger than 23x43 la. 4 rooms but can accommodate 6 cars!!!. You can have a lory + cars.

You know if you live in selangor you can get some free water I think 20 cu meter per house. when you have two houses in one you rugi 20 cu meter. Moreover the more you use the more expensive it is. That means you pay much more. And if you have two meter the pressure will not be constraint by one half in meter pipe. Two meter each with half inch means equal to one 3/4 inch pipe. Oh yes if you use PVC thick pipe the volume is smaller than it should be if you were to use other type of pipe like ABS or s/s or even coper and poly. This is especially so if it is half inch PVC class 7. So, considering the requirement of the thickness of the pipe wall to withstand pressure, ABS is better than PVC. So long as the pipe is not underground you cannot get acid like in the wall I think ABS is a better choice in these circumstances.

I went to a hardware shop yesterday. The shopkeeper told me that it is better to use a very thin stanless steel pipe now availble, not the old usual thick one. It is cheaper than copper pipe and stronger and better in many ways compared to PVC, poly, ABS (in volume and strength, durability and easy fixing and to change screwing and unscrewing). The fittings/joint use copper compression fittings and outlet use stainless steel head. What you say?

Poly the bulky thing is not cheap either. GI you should forget about it unless you still want to live in caves (just joking). Of course when we do something we have to see what it is use for and decide what material is best for it. It is not ss, ss, ss like that. You should advise your hardware shop to get these for his customers lor what to do, everybody has to be alerted to progress. You help him he help you.

No la you mistaken. No, not using SS fittings. it use copper fittings. The "old" SS pipe is thick and expensive because it uses SS fittings that you have to make the pipe end with thread like GI pipe. to do that thread it has to be thick otherwise it will be too thin to take the pressure/weight of the compress fittings. Now with this thin ss, it has to use copper fittings. You see someone discovered why not use thin ss instead of expensive copper pipe by using copper ring compression fittings. Small idea great invention/discovery.

This post has been edited by stevie8: Mar 13 2012, 04:43 PM

SS will rust but only on a small spot or at the contact point between metals. The ss are grade 304 or 18/8 (18% chromium and 8% nickel) which will rust if use with sea water. the small spot will grow slowly and by the time it penentrate the steel all your other piping like PVC or ABS by then already rot! Choose one that is smooth surface. Sirim approved dont give you anything. Anything that is 304 will be approve and not whether it will rust or not. GI also got sirim approval and the approval is refering to it is GI as claimed.

Yes the approval make sure it is true as claimed as far as quality is concerned.

No bro. SS is better. Copper not only cannot take too acidic but also too alkaline. the water acidity level exceeds either side of 6.5 to 8.5 pH should not be used. You can see some blue/green residue. ss can take much higher acid and alkaline level.

ss is harder and copper is expensive.

Since copper is one of the best heat conductor you lose heat easily from you hot water and it means waste of energy thru out the years. See if your copper pipe is connected to the hot tank, at night the copper is "taking" conduct away the heat and heat lost accelerated as compare to ss. On top of that the copper pipe is thicker mean more heat is transfer and lost.

The advantage of copper is it can be bend quite easily and make it flexible for small curve and adjustment. for example when your pipe coming down straight and you find that it is a little to the right, you can bend anywhere along the pipe to be a little to the left.

Of course there are many advantages of copper but here is just comparing to ss.

The reason using poly aginst any other pipes is because you can have one long pipe without connection. It is the connection/joints that usually give you problems, leak and no properly seal with sufficinet glue or strenght. Poly also allow you to turn corner in this long distant length.

I cannot comment on termite attacking poly pipe. I thought termite eat only wood? Terminte might use the pipe channel between the pipe and the wall getting to your house when it is not compact enough due to some movement of the pipe when during concrete curing time like someone kick the pipe or move the pipe.