PEX tubing has been blamed for a number of failures in nearly 70 home int he Seattle area. Some have questioned whether or not it is the tubing at fault. Steve Murray, who works for Northwest Mechanical and was placed in charge of fixing a number of the problems, said that the heating systems in the homes had a number of different problems and he was unable to find any documentation as to who might have designed them with these flaws.

The tubing was manufactured by Plasco manufacturing Company, which is based in Saskatchewan. They were blamed for the problems in the plumbing when a KIRO television report investigated the problems within the home. Because the tubes were bursting, the problem was thought to to be with the tubes themselves,j but industry insiders have said that the bursting tubing could be a symptom of another problem and not the problem within itself.

Plasco responded by saying that they thought that the story itself was misleading and could potentially hurt the PEX industry as a whole. Plasco provided evidence of billions of feet of PEX tubing manufactured by them that had been isntalled across the globe, and insinuated that an isolated problem in the Seattle homes was likely a result of a problem with the heating system, and not with their tubes.

The homes that experienced the problems were mostly upscale condominiums and townhouses that were in duplex layouts. The community was gated, and investigators did not find any evidence that other corners were cut int he construction of the homes. The heating units that were found in the homes consisted of hydro-air with seven to eight fan coil units. The heat source for most of these systems was found to be a low input gas water heater.

The investigation also yielded that many of the pipes were found to contain sludge and slime from water sitting in the pipes throughout the summer, raising concerns of legionaires disease. The estimated cost of repairs in the homes was $25,000 per home which included a new heating system along with a re-piping of the current plumbing systems. These repairs took place within twelve months because the owner of the homes feared further excessive property damage.