Polybutylene pipe and fitting failures

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WM_Su2014_05 · Corrosion Cracking and More, Summer 2014 · §8.p1

Plumbing material that replaced polyethylene; fittings susceptible to stress corrosion cracking in certain water chemistries; class action settlement.

The problem with polyethylene is at about a hundred forty or a hundred fifty degrees Fahrenheit it will creep, it will bulge, it will get an aneurysm, and it will explode on you — or you know, it'll burst and you'll have a flood. So people tried better things like polybutylene, a longer chain hydrocarbon. They put that in lots of houses. Anybody ever have a house that had polybutylene fittings? Yeah, what happened?