Oddly, this house has absolutely no connections for a washer/dryer setup. The electrical wiring is trivial, and I’ve got a perfect spot for the machines directly over the hot and cold water lines, as well as a PVC drain pipe which are running across the house in the crawlspace. I’m setting up a washer standpipe for the drain; no problem there. But, the water lines are 1/2" PEX (polyethylene crosslinked) tubing, and I can’t find any hardware to connect a standard 3/4" washing machine faucet to 1/2" PEX. I have found washing machine faucet boxes with PEX connections, but I have no way to mount such a box because the walls are old plaster and lath, and crumble easily when cut–plus I have no idea what’s behind them. Ideally, I’d like to bring up two 1/2" PEX lines through the floor from T-couplers in the crawlspace lines and anchor them to the wall somehow with a shutoff valve with a 3/4" fitting that I can just screw the washer hoses onto, but someone who knows this stuff might have a much better idea.
Can you mount the faucet box with Liquid Nail? That would solve one of your problems.
To be honest, I’ve never been face to face with PEX as the stuff has only been legal here for a few years and it’s not established any level of popularity yet as the labor unions are still holding copper as The One And Only True Pipe.
That said, you should be able to find PEX to MPT (male pipe thread) adapters (or PEX - female pipe thread, or even PEX - copper sweat) at the plumbing shop. Crimp it onto the PEX, and the faucet screws onto the threads. You’ll just need to cobble up a way to mount the faucets.
Same folks I’ve linked also have ball valves for PEX. Or, just bite the bullet and open a hole in the wall to mount a washing machine box. Whatever you do to mount separate faucets is going to be just as likely to booger up the plaster as a valve box, and the valve box has the bonus of that broad rim to cover the edges of the hole.
That might do. I was thinking of just strapping the PEX lines to the drain standpipe, actually. Then I won’t have to do anything to the wall (can you tell I really want to avoid that?)
Why can’t you just fasten the faucet box to the wall with molly bolts or hollow wall anchors, then run the pipes up to the box?
If you wanted to make it look prettier, you could build a small box out of sheetrock to attach to the wall, then mount your faucet box into the sheetrock.
I’m gonna vote for the faucet box also. If you ever go to sell, a faucet box won’t look like it was engineered by a refugee from a southern trailer park.
The faucet boxes at the local Home Despot have about a 1" flange around the front edge, so if you even half way close you will have no issues.
Have you looked here:
http://www.pexconnection.com/index.php
I have no connection to them other than as a customer. They seem to have a large selection of PEX supplies.