Living in the Phoenix-metro valley, I need to re-pipe the water lines in my 1986 Schult singlewide. It has that old polybutylene pipe which recently sprung a leak, causing a lot of damage. I want to replace it before there's another leak.

Most of the plumbers around here recommend PEX, but I don't want it. It's prone to biofilm accumulation, MTBE leaching, and worst of all, rodents like to chew it up. I just found a huge mummified roof rat in a pile of insulation under the house, close to the water pipe. I don't know how it got in through the skirting, but if I had had PEX it would have chewed through it.

That leaves copper or CPVC.

Two plumbers have said the Flowguard Gold CPVC is very reliable. All the other plumbers have disagreed, saying CPVC is garbage and will soon crack and leak.

Copper performs well here, but is almost more than I can afford.

The plumbing is in the crawlspace under the house. It gets extremely hot here, but we seldom have more than the occasional brief, light freeze. I'm going to have the insulation replaced, with bellyboard, after the re-pipe. I also plan on using pipe insulation.

Would any of you use CPVC, or is copper my only safe choice?