Polyethylene Tubing Spliting

We are getting a lot of our Poly tubing splitting. Is it chemical, pressure, installation, or a manufacturer problem? OR A little of each!?

Jimmy,

I have seen tubing with a seam in it split, I have also had an employee turn up our water heater and the water 'melt' the tubing and it split in a weak spot.

In my experience it was the chemical that dried out the tubing and caused it to crack, usually strong alkaline wheel cleaners.

John, yes the strong alkaline chemicals are where we see the most problems (still see some others but not the number). Would the nylon poly tubing work better?

Nylon tubing should hold up better. Is the tubing getting exposed to any sunlight? UV breaks it down, and clear or light colored tubing will break down faster. Nylon won't resist sunlight unless you use black.

I've had some problems with colored tubing splitting. I do not have the black that mep1 mentioned. The clear/translucent tubing seems to hold up the best.

What a conundrum, clear works for one and black works for the other... I bet what ever color I use, it will be the wrong one! Because we have a translucent roof, we will try the black first, if that fails, then on to the clear!

is it the color or thickness that matters? The thickness is determend by the color, black being the thickest. I am not sure if this applies to every brand, but it does to the kind our warehouse carries.

If the tubing is splitting lengthwise and has become very brittle, I bet it's UV light exposure. I have been told that UV inhibitors are in the colored tubing. But it seems like it all goes bad after long enough- but the colored seems like it hold up better.

Bro Jimmy...it's probably uv degradation and heat from your clear poly roof

My first use of a clear poly roof taught me to change my design for
our beach location. We used blue tinted poly roof...that reduces the heat and uv, plus all black poly tubing...."once you go black---you won't go back!"

what poly sizes (ID) do you guys normally use?i am interested only with the inner diameter of FB,TC,PS; using FLOJET 57 and SFR at 150psi

Im no expert on poly tubing but I am an expert on marine materials and BLACK is always best to stand up to UV damage.. for what its worth. Sail covers are always black when the owner wants it to last in the sun of the tropics. :)

I use 3/8" OD (usually 1/4" ID) for presoak and RO, 1/4" OD for everything else.