The One Pipe Material Course You Have to Take

Thursday, June 4, 2026 | 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm

Architects and engineers are faced with an expanding range of plumbing pipe materials—copper, cast iron, steel, PVC, CPVC, PEX, PE, and ABS—each claiming advantages in cost, durability, sustainability, and health.
This course cuts through marketing claims and examines the real-world performance of common piping materials. Participants will review how materials behave under typical building conditions including disinfectant exposure, stagnation, temperature changes, and fire risk.

Learning Objectives:

1. Lifecycle-Based Sustainability Evaluation: Participants will be able to evaluate the sustainability of plumbing pipe materials across their full lifecycle by correctly identifying key differences in embodied impacts and end-of-life outcomes.

2. Analysis of Water Quality Impacts: Participants will be able to analyze how plumbing system design and material selection influence water quality when presented with scenarios involving stagnation, disinfectant decay, and material interactions in plumbing systems by accurately predicting impacts such as increased leaching, amplified microbial growth, and degradation of health/aesthetic factors.

3. Risk Identification in Material Selection: Participants will be able to identify potential health and safety issues associated with different pipe materials when reviewing plumbing system design scenarios by correctly linking material properties to risks such as incompatibility with construction materials and maintenance chemicals, structural failure from physical and thermal changes, and the effects of permeation.

4. Fire Behavior: Participants will be able to assess the fire performance of plumbing pipe materials when reviewing building fire scenarios and code requirements by distinguishing between combustible and non-combustible materials and identifying associated risks such as flame spread, smoke toxicity, and system failure.

CE: 1 LU | HSW