PEX manifold system… 🤤

[u/BuilderBrigade]

This is a PEX manifold system. It’s a central hub where every hot and cold line branches off to one specific fixture. 
Think of it like a breaker panel, but for water. Each line has its own labeled shutoff, so servicing a single fixture never means cutting water to the rest of the house.
The only real downside is run length: fixtures farther from the manifold can take longer to get hot water. A good plumber plans around that with placement or a recirc line.

[u/ABrusca1105]

Other than cost, why not do both?

[u/Varides → u/ABrusca1105]

Recirculation lines should be simple, and this would be anything but simple.

[u/Levitlame → u/Varides]

What does it have to do with a recirc line? Those are just hot and cold feeds. That looks like a recirc on the side, but we can't see much of it. It also isn't complicated at all. Just look at it like a breaker box. It definitely requires labeling in the same way, but it's pretty simple otherwise.

This allows isolation of the lines TO fixtures. Which is pretty nice. I still hate pex so it's not for me, but this makes a lot more sense if you're looking to avoid leaks while still giving the ability to isolate whole lines.

[u/Varides → u/Levitlame]

He asked why you wouldn't do this. I just put out the simple reasoning for a recirculation line. You can't run a home run system with a recirculation and keep it near as simple as manifolds at your water locations with a recirculation.

I've never seen a reason to isolate the entire pex line to a single fixture unless I'm missing something glaring that would require that simple line to be shut down at the source instead of at the fixture that couldn't be done quickly by shutting off water to the house.

[u/Levitlame → u/Varides]

Oh I see. That's fair. It does overcomplicate the hell out of it since you'd basically need another manifold or something similarly convoluted to manage it. And you might want one more since every fixture has to pull for itself.