plumbing materials – copper or pex?

Currently have a 60 year old house with old galvanized water supply piping. Want to install new plumbing. Obviously, I am not going to reinstall galvanized piping. My dilemma is which material should I use. My wife and I went through the parade of homes and every house (12+ houses) had some form of pex piping. Not a single one had copper pipe. These houses were all $300,000 to $1,000,000+ homes (here in central Wisconsin the average sale price is around $140,000), so they were all well above average houses. When I went to get my permits from the city the plumbing inspector told me he rarely sees copper anymore.

It seems like the most common pex used around here by plumbers is Wirsbo-Uponor Aquapex. Plumbing inspector said he also sees a lot of Nibco’s Dura-pex & Watts pex piping. Since pex piping has only been around in this country 25± years (Nibco Dura-pex only since 1992) I am not entirely comfortable with using it – especially after reading about Zurn and its problems, class action lawsuits, etc. Even though we do not plan on being in this house in 20± years I do not want to install new type of piping that does not have a long track record.

It seems that if plumbers are widely using pex piping it must be a reliable, long term piping alternative to copper. Otherwise, in 30 years there is going to be a lot of water damaged homes, etc. Plumbers must be comfortable with pex piping if they have switched over to it.

Any comments regarding the use of either pex or copper are appreciated. Even any comments regarding which (Aquapex,Dura-pex,etc.) would be appreciated.

Thank you!

Matt