Journal of Cleaner Production 137 (2016) 1228e1236

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Journal of Cleaner Production

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro

Environmental and economic life cycle assessment of PEX and copper

plumbing systems: A case study
Somayeh Asadi a, *, Hamed Babaizadeh b, Nolan Foster a, Reza Broun c
a
Department of Architectural Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, 104 Engineering Unit A, University Park, PA 16802, USA
b
Stantec Consulting Inc., 500 Main Street, Baton Rouge, LA 70801, USA
c
Department of Civil Engineering, University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX 76019, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Cross-linked polyethylene (PEX) pipe has become viable alternative to traditional copper pipe to be used
Received 13 August 2015 as residential water plumbing systems. PEX pipe is relatively cheaper and more versatile compared to a
Received in revised form copper pipe. This study employs Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to compare the economic and environ-
1 August 2016
mental performances of PEX and copper pipes over the life cycle of a student housing project in Lan-
Accepted 1 August 2016
Available online 3 August 2016
caster, Pennsylvania. To achieve this objective, the costs in different life stages were extracted from three
different sources in the market (RS Means book and two material suppliers; “Residential Copper
Plumbing Products Limited Warranty” and “Uponor PEX”) and a Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) was used to
Keywords:
PEX
quantify the energy and emissions of the two plumbing systems during the manufacturing process, in-
Copper service and end of life. The Building for Environmental and Economic Sustainability (BEES) model and
Piping SimaPro 8.0 software (Ecoinvent 3.0 database) were employed to develop the life cycle inventory of the
Life cycle assessment (LCA) piping system through all life cycle stages. BEES model adopts Tool for Reduction and Assessment of
Life cycle cost (LCC) Chemical and other environmental Impacts (TRACI) life cycle impact assessment methods developed by
Sustainable building material the U.S. EPA Office of Research and Development. The LCA framework used in this study was based on a
life cycle methodology that follows the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 14,040
standard for LCA. The results of the analysis indicate that use of PEX piping instead of the traditional
copper piping systems in residential buildings, would considerably reduce the total cost of the building
up to 63% over its life cycle. Moreover, it can significantly reduce the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions
(approximately 42%) and lessen the negative effect of environmental impacts to land, water and air.
© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction environmental impacts of any proposed project during the design

Over the past decade, dealing with environmental impacts from
pollutants due to combustion of fossil fuels has been considered a
global priority and are seen as an important step toward sustain-
ability. Fossil fuel combustion have historically been the dominant
factor affecting total U.S. emission trends and have increased car-
bon dioxide (CO2) emission concentration by about 5% between
1990 and 2012 (Environmental Protection Agency, 2015). According
to the Kyoto Protocol, the industrialized countries are struggling to
reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases by 5% (United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change, 1997). In order to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it is essential to quantify the
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: asadi@engr.psu.edu (S. Asadi).
stage.
Recent studies show physical infrastructures such as water,
wastewater, and transportation systems are one of the critical
infrastructure systems of modern society that create substantial
environmental and economic impacts through their life cycles (Du
et al., 2013; Herstein et al., 2009, 2011; Piratla et al., 2012). These
systems serve a vibrant role in sustaining human activities and
supporting the development of civil institutions and cultures.
Therefore, attempts have been made to find a promising type of
piping system in order to lower the life cycle costs and reduce
negative environmental impacts which are key aspects to a sus-
tainable design. Although there are difficulties in measuring envi-
ronmental performance of different materials, it can be quantified
using the evolving, multi-disciplinary approach known as envi-
ronmental life-cycle assessment (LCA) (Babaizadeh and Hassan,
2013; Babaizadeh et al., 2015; Fesanghary et al., 2012;

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.08.006
0959-6526/© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 S. Asadi et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 137 (2016) 1228e1236
List of acronym
ASTM American Society for Testing Materials
BEES Building for Environmental and Economic
Sustainability
CO2 Carbon Dioxide
CPVC Chlorinated Polyvinyl Chloride
DI Ductile Iron
IBC International Building Code
ISO International Organization for Standardization
LCA Life Cycle Assessment
LCC Life Cycle Cost
LCI Life Cycle Inventory
MDPE Medium Density Polyethylene
PEX Cross-Linked Polyethylene
PVC Polyvinyl Chloride
TRACI Tool for Reduction and Assessment of Chemical and
other environmental Impacts
Racoviceanu and Karney, 2010; Salem et al., 2003; Broun et al.,
2014). To analyze and assess the environmental impacts of piping
materials through their entire life stages, LCA which is a valuable
tool can be utilized. LCA is a well-established tool for evaluating
potential environmental impacts of different materials, products
and systems to reveal the most sustainable alternatives to be used
in industry.
Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) is a multi-
dimensional analysis approach that considers the three pillars of
sustainability: Environmental protection, as well as economic and
social performance. While life-cycle based environmental and
economic analyses are covered by standardized and proven
methods, LCA and Life Cycle Costing (LCC), respectively, the basic
design of social LCA is still under development and discussion
among the LCSA community. In comparison to LCA and LCC, ap-
proaches, databases and specific software for social LCA are still in
an early stage of development. While social LCA could become a
useful tool for companies to select production locations and pro-
cesses, it can be questioned whether it can be applied to support
technology development. In an early design phase neither the
production locations nor local social impacts are typically an issue.
Future work should come up with ways to consider or weight the
different quality levels of LCA, LCA and social LCA within Life Cycle
Sustainability Assessment. In addition, based on your comment, we
tried to explain that this paper is only focusing on environmental
and economic performance of plumbing systems (Zimmermann
et al., 2015).
LCA, Environmental Impact Quantification (EIQ) and water
footprint (WF) are three assessment methodologies considered as
important instruments for environmental assessments of products,
services and consumption evaluations in connection with natural
resources depletion and pollution threats. The main criteria in
applying and comparing these methods are related to: (i) the
overall data needed and the analysis of resulted impact categories,
and (ii) the relevance and the easiness of applying these methods
for the assessment of actual impacts of plumbing systems.
LCA has gained an increasing interest from researchers to be
used on material production because it evaluated various aspects of
production cycle from extraction raw materials to end of life phase.
On the other hand, EIQ is more desirable because of its simplicity,
but still has two important drawbacks that need to be considered in
future environmental assessments; (1) it focuses on a single
1229
process ignoring the upstream production processes and (2) it uses
single metrics and does not segregate various effects induced in
environment. Since the data used in this study are new with high
quality and extracted from Ecoinvent version 3.0 database which
includes upstream production, LCA has been utilized for the pur-
pose of this study (Teodosiu et al., 2016).
In addition, the water footprint (WF) is an indicator which is
heavily dependent on geographic and temporal specificity, pre-
senting water consumption volumes by source and polluted vol-
umes by type of pollution. WF is more common for environmental
performance of materials and products that use plentiful amount of
water. Thereby, it is not an appropriate indicator and method for
evaluation of environmental impacts of plumbing systems. Due to
above reasons, LCA was chosen as the best method for assessing
environmental performance of plumbing systems (Teodosiu et al.,
2016).
Hermann et al., (2007) developed a new analytical tool,
COMPLIMENT, to provide detailed information on the overall
environmental impact of a business. This tool has the capability to
integrate life cycle assessment, multi-criteria analysis and envi-
ronmental performance indicators. In a similar study, multi-criteria
decision making method based on the value analysis and the multi-
attribute utility theory was used to analyze the environmental
impacts of different materials for sewerage pipes. The model was
used to measure the sustainability of 8 alternatives including rigid
reinforced and non-reinforced concrete pipes as well as flexible
polypropylene, polyethylene, polyvinyl chloride and glass-fiber
reinforced polyester pipes. Results indicated that the sustainabil-
ity indexes were similar for diameters of 400 mm and below for all
the studied materials (de la Fuente et al., 2016).
In a parallel recent trend, several studies (Piratla et al., 2012;
Perzon et al., 2007; Recio et al., 2005; European Copper Institue,
2006; GEBERIT; Fischer, 2012; Prek, 2004; Blom et al., 2010; Yang
et al., 2008; Ooteghem and Xu, 2012) have used LCA to investi-
gate the environmental and economic impacts of different heating
and cooling systems as well as piping materials. Thus far, very
limited research has been reported in the context of sustainable
assessment of piping systems. For instance, (Dennison et al. (1999)
assessed and analyzed the environmental impacts of different pipe
materials including ductile iron (DI) and medium density poly-
ethylene (MDPE). They concluded that production on polyethylene
gives rise to a significant proportion of the environmental impacts.
For example, it contributes to 74% of the total global warming po-
tential caused by the system. Moreover, they found out the external
protective coating of zinc over ductile iron contributes significantly
to the total process energy required to manufacture the functional
unit from raw material. Their study identified a significant pipe
waste stream that has been overlooked and it highlighted areas
where environmental impacts can be reduced by extending mate-
rial recovery or reusing them. In another study conducted by (Prek,
2004), three different heating systems with different construction
materials were compared using Eco-indicator 95 method. The focus
of the study was on the environmental impact at the production
phase. The results of this study indicated that copper pipe and other
copper parts contribute to significant environmental impact in
comparison with steel pipes. Radiator heating Eco-indicator
(1.359 Ptdsteel pipes and 4.0 Ptdcopper pipes) showed three
times higher value for copper pipes than for the steel pipes despite
smaller dimensions. In a similar study, Memarya et al., (2012) used
a time-series life cycle assessment method to study the historical
environmental impacts of copper in Australia from 1940 to 2008.
The results of the LCA study emphasized the importance of
considering time-varying parameters.
The environmental profiles of the production of chlorinated
polyvinyl chloride (CPVC) and copper materials used in three types
1230 S. Asadi et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 137 (2016) 1228e1236
of building piping applications was compared by (Franklin
Associates 2008). Results of this study showed that copper had
highest CO2 eq emission in comparison with CPVC. In addition, fuel-
related wastes were higher for the copper pipe systems compared
to the CPVC systems because of the large amount of energy
required to process the primary and secondary metal. Later,
(Carolin et al., (2012) carried out a LCA study to compare the
environmental impacts of PE and ductile iron pipe systems for
water distribution. The ductile iron pipe system for water distri-
bution contributes significantly to all six environmental impact
categories than the PE pipe system for water distribution. The dif-
ference was mostly due to the higher impact of the production of
the ductile iron pipes. In a recent study conducted by Akhtar et al.,
(2014), life cycle sustainability assessment was applied to evaluate
and compare economic and environmental impacts of four typical
piping materials including concrete, polyvinyl chloride (PVC),
vitrified clay, and ductile iron. The results of this study indicated
that PVC pipe is the most sustainable option from both environ-
mental and economic viewpoints.
In another study conducted by Kalbusch and Ghisi, (2016), the
life cycle assessment was performed to evaluate the environmental
impacts of replacing ordinary taps with water-saving ones. Three
different phases including production, use, and disposal were
considered in this study. It was found that the use phase of both
ordinary and water saving taps has a significant contribution on
global warming potential, depletion of the ozone layer, water
consumption, and energy consumption. In addition, results showed
that the replacement of ordinary taps with water-saving taps would
reduce water consumption by 26.2%, energy consumption by 13.6%,
human toxicity by 4.6%, acidification by 0.2%, global warming po-
tential by 14.8% and depletion of the ozone layer by 15.8%.
A major goal of these studies is to show the consequences of
building community choices during the design phase. Proper
design and selection of piping systems not only can reduce negative
environmental impacts, but also influences on the construction and
maintenance costs. Therefore, the present study focuses on the
effects of selecting proper piping system as part of building services
systems of a student housing located in Millersville, Pennsylvania.
In this study the LCA methodology is used to compare the envi-
ronmental impacts and costs of two main piping materials in
buildings including copper and cross-linked polyethylene
(commonly abbreviated PEX). To achieve this objective, this study
compiled a Life-Cycle Inventory (LCI) for quantifying the energy
and emissions of the piping materials during the manufacturing
process and in-service. The Building for Environmental and Eco-
nomic Sustainability (BEES) model d used for life-cycle assessment
of sustainable construction alternatives in the United States d was
employed to develop the LCI of piping materials (Bare et al., 2002).
The LCA framework used in this study was based on a life cycle
methodology that follows the International Organization for Stan-
dardization (ISO) 14,040 standard for life cycle assessment and the
ASTM standard for Multi-attribute Decision Analysis. This frame-
work measures the environmental performance of building prod-
ucts using the environmental LCA approach in all stages over the
life of a product: raw material acquisition, manufacture, trans-
portation, installation, use, and waste management. Moreover,
economic performance is measured using the ASTM International
standard LCC method, which covers the costs of initial investment,
replacement, operation, maintenance and repair, and disposal.
Therefore, this systematic methodology for selecting building
products helps the decision makers to choose the best product with
the most appropriate balance between environmental and eco-
nomic aspects. The intended result is a cost-effective reduction in
building-related contributions to environmental problems.
2. Methodology and problem formulation
2.1. Case study
This study will be centered on the second phase of Millersville
University's student housing project that is set to be completed in
May 2015. This phase of the project features four stories and 14,400
square meters (m2) of completely new construction. The building is
classified as type V-A (Protected Wood Frame) by the International
Building Code (IBC) and is framed and supported by wood. The
building envelope consists of 9 cm (0.09 m) brick facing, pitched
roofs protected by asphalt shingles, and low-emittance argon filled
double pane windows. The project sits on the fringe of a student
quad space. There are numerous walking paths out front and a large
blacktop parking lot in the rear (Fig 1a.).
Unlike a typical dormitory layout, the units are suites and
include personal lavatories and water closets. It is important to note
that this feature greatly increases the amount of water distribution
piping over traditional common pod bathrooms. The interiors are
finished with painted drywall, carpet tile and acoustical ceiling tile
in common spaces, and vinyl planks and gypsum board ceilings in
the units. The interior spaces have common residential fixtures and
equipment throughout.
Serving an average of 93 square meters (m2), heat pumps handle
the heating and cooling demands for the units. These heat pumps
are looped with a cooling tower. For heating, boilers are connected
to the system via a heat exchanging loop. The plumbing consists of
CPVC risers that include all vertical piping and fittings. These CPVC
risers branch off into PEX piping for distribution at every floor.
There is roughly over 1000 linear meters (m) of PEX piping (all
diameters) in the project. CPVC is also used for vents and sanitary
(Fig 1b.). As it can be seen in Fig 1 b., the focus of this study is on
different piping systems in the building.
2.2. Materials
Recently polyethylene-based materials such as PEX are being
used predominantly in building services pipework systems, water
piping, heating and cooling systems and insulation for high voltage
electrical cables. These materials have many advantages over
traditional copper and iron tubing systems; they are relatively
cheaper, lighter, and more convenient to install. Unlike copper and
iron, PEX pipe does not have corrosion problems. PEX materials are
slower to burst than copper pipes. PEX pipes typically have fewer
sharp turns resulting greater water pressure at fixtures. However,
there are still few drawbacks limiting use of PEX piping under
certain conditions. Due to degrading potential, PEX piping cannot
be used in applications exposed to sunlight. They are also vulner-
able to being perforated by insects.
Economic and environmental performances of PEX and copper
piping are investigated in this study. The required amount of ma-
terials to be used in the case study building is shown in Tables 1 and
2. The lengths of different diameters used throughout the building
were obtained from the building's mechanical plans. Material
properties and cross sectional information of copper and PEX pipes
were found in ASTM B88 (ASTM, 2014) and ASTM F876 (ASTM,
2015), respectively. The cross sectional area of each material type
was calculated using the inner and outer diameters and was
multiplied by the length of the relative pipe section to quantify the
volume of the pipes. The total volume of each material type was
multiplied by their relative densities to attain the total mass used in
the building.
 S. Asadi et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 137 (2016) 1228e1236 1231

Fig. 1. a. Building construction. b. Piping system.

Table 1 piping in this study only includes the one time installation cost;
Total required materials (Volume). however, the PEX piping needs to be replaced with new materials
PEX Copper in year 25. Therefore, the future cost of PEX piping installation in
year 25 was adjusted to its present value according to BEES 4.0
Length Area Volume Length Area Volume
(m) (cm2) (m3) (m) (cm2) (m3)
model (Lippiatt, 1998) and then was summed to its initial cost to
obtain the total life cycle cost of PEX piping over the 40-year in-
1.27 cm (1/200 ) 3341 0.209 0.070 3341 0.119 0.040
service life of the studied building.
1.9 cm (3/400 ) 5029 0.389 0.196 5029 0.189 0.095
2.54 cm (100 ) 396 0.660 0.026 396 0.272 0.011
3.175 cm (1 1/400 ) 280 0.988 0.028 280 0.368 0.010
2.4. Environmental performance
Total 0.319 0.156

A cradle-to-grave environmental LCA was employed to assess

Table 2
Total required materials (Mass).
PEX Copper
Volume Mass Volume
(m3) (kg) (m3)
0.32 330 0.16
2.3. Economic performance
To evaluate the economic performance of PEX versus copper
piping, three main factors were considered; material price, instal-
lation cost projections, and maintenance projections. The material
costs applied in this project are an average of data from three
sources; RSMeans, 2014 ed. (construction cost database) and two
material suppliers. The labor and production rates were reconciled
from data in RSMeans, 2014 ed. and historical data belonging to the
general contractor on the project, Benchmark Construction Com-
pany Incorporated (Residential Copper Plumbing Products Limited
Warranty, 2015; Uponor., 2015). The quantities of pipe shown in
Table 2 as well as obtained cost data from RS Means book and two
material suppliers were used to calculate the total cost of materials
and their installation ($/m).
To incorporate the service life into this study, a total cost of each
material including a percentage of the installation price that should
need to be replaced by year 40 was considered. It was assumed the
likelihood of a unit failing would decrease linearly from the end of
one service life (years) to the end of second service life. According
to manufacturer guarantees, a service life of 50 years was assumed
for copper piping. Similarly, the assumed service life for PEX piping
was 25 years. In fact, both of these service lives are conservative
because they are sourced from manufacturer guarantees. Therefore,
within the 40-year service life of the studied building, a second
installation cost of the PEX piping was included in the life cycle cost
analysis of PEX piping. Consequently, the life cycle cost of copper
the environmental performance of the two piping alternatives
within their different life cycle stages. These stages include acqui-
sition of raw materials, transportation to the factory, product
manufacturing, transportation to the store and/or site, installation,
Mass operation, and eventually recycling and/or waste management. As
(kg) shown in Fig. 2, environmental LCA has four major steps; goal and
1394 scope, inventory analysis, impact assessment and interpretation.
The first step of an environmental LCA is describing the goal and
scope. Introducing the most environmentally-friendly construction
materials to the building community and leading them towards
sustainable designs is the main goal of environmental life cycle
assessment (Lippiatt, 1998). Considering an appropriate functional
unit for the alternatives is essential to accomplish a fair compari-
son. Furthermore, system boundaries for the analysis are defined in
this primary step of LCA. The boundary setting consists of key de-
cision criteria counting energy and mass consumption. In this
study, functional unit was assumed to be the required amount of
piping for each alternative for the under study building being in
service for 40 years.
In the second step of LCA, the inventory flows should be
determined and quantified. This includes the unit process inputs
such as raw materials, water and energy, and outputs including
releases to land, water and air. SimaPro 8.0 (Ecoinvent 3.0 data-
bases) was employed to quantify the energy consumed and envi-
ronmental emissions associated to the piping alternatives over
their life cycles.
The third step of LCA is characterization and normalization of
the quantified inventory flows as stated by the ISO series 14,040
(International Organization for Standardization, 1997a, 1997b,
1998a, 1998b). Inventory data were associated with specific envi-
ronmental impact categories, based on the BEES 4.0 model. The
BEES model provides the equivalency factors based on the research
conducted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (Lippiatt,
1998). BEES model adopts TRACI (Tool for Reduction and Assess-
ment of Chemical and other environmental Impacts) life cycle
impact assessment methods developed by the U.S. EPA Office of
Research and Development.
1232 S. Asadi et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 137 (2016) 1228e1236

Environmental
Performance

Goal and Scope Inventory Impact

Interpretation
Definition Analysis Assessment

Flow
Functional Unit Characterization Weighting
Quantification

System
Global Warming Acidification Normalization
Boundaries

Fossil Fuel
Eutrophication
Depletion

Indoor Air Quality Habitat Alteration

Criteria Air
Water Intake
Pollutants

Human Health Smog

Ecological
Ozone Depletion
Toxicology

Fig. 2. Environmental performance steps.

For transport from factory to construction site and from con- Table 3
struction site to landfill/recycle, it was assumed a 16e32 metric ton Normalization and weighting factors used in the analysis.

lorry is used for an average distance of 25 km with a load of 50% Impact Normalization Weighting
because the return trip will be empty. Since PEX is cross-linked Norm. values Relative importance
polyethylene and production of new PEX pipes require melt
Global warming 25,582,640.09 29.9
down process, these materials cannot be directly recycled and
Acidification 7,800,200,000 3.09
reused as pipes. However, after being collected and decontami- Eutrophication 19,214.2 6.19
nated, old or surplus piping can be grinded and pulverized down to Fossil fuel depletion 35,309 10.31
form sand-like substance and subsequently processed into other Water intake 529,957.75 8.25
plastic products. Therefore, the end of life stage for PEX was Criteria air pollutants 19,200 9.28
Human health cancer 151,500.03 8.25
assumed to be 25% landfill and 75% recycle while 100% of copper Human health non cancer 151,500.03 5.15
was assumed to be recycled. Recycling is effective for both current Smog 81,646.72 4.12
and future life cycles. Therefore, the total environmental impacts Ozone depletion 340.19 2.06
only include half of the recycling impacts which correspond to the Ecological toxicity 274,557,555.4 7.22
Habitat alteration 0.00335 6.19
effects of recycling in the current life cycle and excluding its effects
for the next life cycle.
Once impacts characterization is performed, the resulting
impact category performance measures are expressed in non- Office of Research and Development corresponding to its TRACI set
commensurate units and they need to be placed on the same of impact assessment methods (Lippiatt, 1998).
scale through normalization. For instance, global warming is Normalized impacts were synthesized by weighting each
expressed in carbon dioxide equivalents, acidification in hydrogen impact category by its relative importance to overall environmental
ion equivalents, eutrophication in nitrogen equivalents, and so on. performance. Then, the weighted average impact score was calcu-
Table 3 shows the normalization data developed by the U.S. EPA lated for each alternative to represent their overall environmental
 S. Asadi et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 137 (2016) 1228e1236
performance to form the final step of environmental LCA.
In the last decade of 20th century, EPA's Science Advisory Board
(SAB) developed lists of the relative importance of various envi-
ronmental impacts considering criteria such as the spatial scale of
the environmental impact, the severity of the hazard, the degree of
exposure and the penalty for being wrong. Later, these lists were
adjusted through application of the Analytic Hierarchy Process
(AHP) technique at the facilitated BEES Stakeholder Panel to reflect
a synthesis of panelists' perspectives across all combinations of
stakeholder voting interest and time horizon. The relative impor-
tance factor developed by BEES Stakeholder Panel reflects
contemporary values in applying LCA to real world decisions
(Lippiatt, 1998).
The environmental impact was weighted as suggested in the
BEES model, based on BEES Stakeholder Panel Judgments (Lippiatt,
1998). Indoor air quality, among the 12 weighted factors that the
BEES model takes into consideration in LCA, was omitted in the
analysis of piping alternatives since use of the alternatives does not
affect this environmental category. Relative importance weights
were then modified to reflect indoor air quality elimination in these
categories: global warming (29.9%), acidification (3.1%), eutrophi-
cation (6.2%), fossil fuel depletion (10.3%), water intake (8.3%), air
pollutants (9.3%), human health cancerous and non-cancerous
(8.3% and 5.2%), smog (4.1%), ozone depletion (2.1%), habitat alter-
ation (6.2%), and ecological toxicity (7.2%). The scores provided by
applying the relative importance weights denote the environ-
mental performance of the piping alternatives. A lower score in-
dicates a more sustainable and environmentally-friendly
alternative, and a negative score specifies that the product conveys
a positive impact on the environment. Table 3 depicts the
normalization values and relative importance weights used for this
study (Lippiatt, 1998).
3. Results and discussions
The economic performance of these two products was
compared on the basis of material cost, installation cost, and
maintenance costs. Table 4 shows an initial material cost savings of
$97,346 or 4.61 times the price of the PEX. It should be noted that
this study does not include the necessary fittings and that in gen-
eral, PEX fittings are between one and two dollars more expensive
per unit.
Table 5 indicates a labor installation cost savings of $12,364.88.
Copper piping takes more than 2 times longer to install than PEX
primarily because it is flexible and lightweight.
Fig. 3 combines the above information with the system
replacement cost data to show an overall initial savings of
$109,711on the studied project. A service life of 50 years was
assumed for copper pipe. The assumed service life for PEX piping
was 25 years. In fact, both of these service lives are conservative
because they are sourced from manufacturer guarantees. Since the
service life of the studied building was 40 years, the costs for a
Table 4
PEX vs. copper piping material costs.
Material Diameter (cm) Quantity (m)
PEX 1.270 3341
PEX 1.905 5029
PEX 2.540 396
PEX 3.175 280
Copper 1.270 3341
Copper 1.905 5029
Copper 2.540 396
Copper 3.175 280
1233
second installation of the PEX piping were included in the life cycle
cost of PEX tubing. A 3% real discount rate was used to adjust future
PEX material and installation costs to present USD values (Rushing
et al., 2013). Table 6 shows the initial and life cycle savings due to
choosing PEX pipe over copper pipe.
Environmental LCAs of the two piping alternatives, PEX and
copper, for the under study building were analyzed and compared.
Initial cost is the investment cost. Initial cost is defined as the
money paid to purchase and install the product. Life cycle cost in-
cludes present value of initial cost plus present value of future
replacement cost. Table 7 shows the characterized and normalized
values for the main environmental impacts. As it can be seen in
Fig. 4, eutrophication, fossil fuel depletion, human health (cancer
and non-cancer), and smog are the main categories threating the
environment. All environmental impacts were normalized to CO2
equivalents to be comparable.
Fig. 5 depicts the potential improvements due to replacing
copper piping with PEX piping. The replacement improves every
single environmental category and significantly reduces the emis-
sions to water, land, and air. There are many potential human
health damages from exposure to industrial and natural substances
if they occur in high enough concentration. Some substances have a
wide range of different effects, and different individuals have
widely varying tolerances to different substances. Switching from
copper piping to PEX piping improves human health impact sub-
stantially; human health (cancer) for 99% and human health (non-
cancer) for 42%. Another major environmental impact improve-
ment in using PEX piping over copper piping is in eutrophication
potential which is equivalent to 96% reduction. Eutrophication is
the addition of mineral nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorous
to the soil or water which results in undesirable shifts in the
number of species in ecosystems and a reduction in ecological di-
versity. For instance, large quantities of such minerals in water in-
crease algae growth and consequently lead to reduction of oxygen
in water and extinction of species like fish. In addition to human
health and eutrophication, ozone depletion and smog formation
potentials become better for 85% and 81%, respectively. A thinning
of the ozone layer allows more harmful short wave radiation to
reach the Earth's surface, potentially causing changes to ecosystems
as flora and fauna have varying abilities to cope with it. Smog leads
to harmful impacts on human health and vegetation. Air emissions
from industry and transportation can be trapped at ground level
and react with sunlight to produce photochemical smog. One of the
components of smog is ozone, which is not emitted directly, but
rather produced through the interactions of volatile organic com-
pounds (VOCs) and oxides of nitrogen (NOx). PEX piping depletes
47% less fossil fuels such as petroleum, natural gas, and coal, which
are non-renewable, and decreases global warming potential for 42%
compared to copper piping. It has been reported in the literature
that the energy and global warming potential reductions for PEX
piping compared to copper piping (average for copper pipes types
K, L and M) are 44% and 64% (Franklin Associates, 2008).
Average price ($/m) Total
$1.83 $6101.07 $26,966
$3.27 $16,423.00
$4.99 $1976.00
$8.79 $2465.60
$9.39 $31,382.13 $124,312
$14.50 $72,930.00
$24.27 $9615.67
$37.03 $10,383.73
1234 S. Asadi et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 137 (2016) 1228e1236

Table 5
PEX vs. copper piping installation costs.

Material Diameter (cm) Quantity (m) Production (m/hr) Labor rate ($/hr) Total

PEX 1.270 3341 76.2 $84.05 $3684.75 $9978

PEX 1.905 5029 76.2 $84.05 $5547.30
PEX 2.540 396 76.2 $84.05 $437.06
PEX 3.175 280 76.2 $84.05 $309.30

Copper 1.270 3341 36.6 $84.05 $7676.57 $22,343

Copper 1.905 5029 33.5 $84.05 $12,607.50
Copper 2.540 396 30.5 $84.05 $1092.65
Copper 3.175 280 24.4 $84.05 $966.58

$160,000 numerous favorable economic and environmental advantages. The

PEX Copper
overall life cycle costs for the two piping systems were considered
$140,000
over the in-service life of the studied building. In addition to the
$120,000 economic performance of the systems, their environmental per-
formance was analyzed to find the more environmentally-friendly
$100,000

$80,000

$60,000
Environmental LCA
$40,000 1.0
PEX Copper
$20,000 Normalized Values (g CO2 eq) 0.9
0.8
$0 0.7
Initial Material Cost Initial Installation Cost Grand Total
0.6
Fig. 3. Economic performance. 0.5
0.4
0.3
Fig. 6 shows the overall environmental scores for copper and 0.2
PEX piping. Smaller score denotes more environmentally-friendly 0.1
material amongst the two alternatives. 0.0
Global Warming

Acidification Potential

Eutrophication Potential

Fossil Fuel Depletion

Water Intake

Criteria Air Pollutants

Human Health cancer

Human Health non cancer

Smog Formation Potential

Ozone Depletion Potential

Ecological Toxicity

Habitat alteratin
4. Conclusions

This paper studies the economic and environmental LCAs of two

main piping alternatives, copper and PEX, to be used in residential
buildings. PEX potable water pipe is finding its way to replace
traditional copper pipe in green building construction due to its
Environmental Impacts

Fig. 4. Normalized environmental impacts for the functional unit of alternatives.

Table 6
Initial and life cycle savings due to choosing PEX pipe.
100
Initial cost Life cycle cost Initial savings Life cycle savings
90
PEX piping $36,944 $54,589 $109,711 $92,066 80
Improvement (%)

Copper piping $146,655 $146,655 70

60
50
Table 7 40
Environmental performances of PEX and copper piping. 30
Impact Flow Characterization 20
10
PEX Copper
0
Global Warming

Acidification Potential

Eutrophication Potential

Fossil Fuel Depletion

Water Intake

Criteria Air Pollutants

Human Health cancer

Human Health non cancer

Smog Formation Potential

Ozone Depletion Potential

Ecological Toxicity

Habitat alteratin

Global Warming g CO2 eq 1.47Eþ05 2.53Eþ05

Acidification Potential Hþ mmole eq 3.24Eþ04 4.11Eþ04
Eutrophication Potential g N eq 3.22Eþ02 7.66Eþ03
Fossil Fuel Depletion MJ surplus 6.47Eþ02 1.21Eþ03
Water Intake Liters 1.19Eþ03 1.56Eþ03
Criteria Air Pollutants microDALYs 1.29Eþ01 2.92Eþ01
Human Health cancer g C6H6 eq 5.23Eþ02 6.68Eþ04
Human Health non cancer g C7H7 eq 7.25Eþ04 1.25Eþ05
Smog Formation Potential g NOX eq 3.69Eþ02 1.98Eþ03
Environmental Impacts
Ozone Depletion Potential g CFC-11 eq 2.70E-03 1.80E-02
Ecological Toxicity g 2,4-D eq 5.13Eþ02 6.73Eþ02
Fig. 5. Improvements in environmental impacts due to replacing copper piping with
Habitat alteratin T&E count 5.18E-11 6.50E-11
PEX piping.
 S. Asadi et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 137 (2016) 1228e1236
1200
1000
Overall Environmental Score
800
600
400
200
0 de la Fuente, A., Pons, O., Josa, A., Aguado, A., 2016. Multi-Criteria Decision Making
PEX
Alternatives
Fig. 6. Overall environmental score of piping alternatives.
choice for the next phase of construction. Based on the results, the
following conclusions were drawn:
1) Choosing PEX piping over copper piping will result in initial
savings of $109,711 and overall savings of $92,066 over the life
cycle of the building.
2) PEX piping can cut carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent emissions
up 42% and reduce the global warming potential.
3) PEX piping production and installation has 47% less embodied
energy than copper piping within the life cycle of the studied
building. Therefore, the use of non-renewable fossil fuel energy
sources decreases by selecting PEX piping over copper piping.
4) Switching from copper pipes to PEX pipes decreases the total
amount of benzene equivalents in the environment for 99%.
According to Toxicity Equivalency Potentials (TEPs) criteria
introduced by TRACI developers, benzene equivalents represent
the chemicals threatening human health (cancer causing sub-
stances). Moreover, the non-cancer human health criteria
reduce for 42% due to reduction of toluene equivalents.
5) Selecting PEX piping reduces the unpleasant changes in the
ecosystems by reducing the nitrogen equivalents (eutrophica-
tion potential) up to 96%.
6) Acidification potential, water intake, criteria air pollutants, smog
formation potential, ozone depletion potential, ecological
toxicity and habitat alteration categories improve from 21% to
85% by electing PEX pipes over copper-made ones.
Therefore, the integrated LCA study introduces PEX as the
economic-environmental-preferred alternative to be considered by
the decision-makers in building community towards a greener and
more sustainable design. The conclusion of this study can be
applied to similar residential buildings. It is also recommended to
use the implemented LCA framework for further case studies to
identify economic-environmentally preferred construction
materials.
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