I inspected a home built by Toll Brothers today. I see more and more flexible gas piping instead of the conventional black pipe that was used for so long. I must say that this newer type of flexible pipe does have some major advantages over its more rigid cousin. The proper name for the material is corrugated steel tubing. The tubing can be used to deliver gas to almost any gas fired appliance in the home. The biggest advantage to the builder anyway is its time savings to install. With conventional black pipe you need to measure it, cut it to size, tread it, and then apply joint compound. It’s a lot of steps and very time consuming. Another advantage (and I had to be sold on this one) is that the flexible pipe is less likely to leak gas because it has less connections then the conventional black pipe. Every time black pipe needs to change direction a ninety degree fitting and coupling needs to be used. This makes for many more possible leak areas. The flexible pipe can bend and work its way around obstacles. However installing flexible gas piping is not a do-it yourself project. The manufactures of such products want their installers to take proper training on its installation. Flexible pipe can be installed both in a serious or in parallel. It took me a while but I am starting to warm up to this product, maybe because I see it so often now.