Polybutylene Disaster

Introduction

Note: After tracking my web site statistics for a while now, I see many people coming to this page as the result of a Google search. After going through the PB pipe experience, I can definitely sympathize with those that are having problems. If there is anything additional that you would like to know or that you think would be useful to post here, please let me know! Click on the Home link below for my email address.

Do you know what POLYBUTYLENE PIPE is?

I do. Now.

 On 6/13/2001, I noticed some water at the base of a bathroom vanity. "How strange..." I thought. Must be leaking from the drain or possibly from the shutoff valves.

After pulling off the veneer trim piece at the bottom, it was apparent there was something seriously wrong. The water marks made it appear as though the wood had been soaking up water for a while. There was no evidence of a leak inside the vanity.

I looked around for a few minutes, trying to figure out where exactly the water was coming from. In doing so, I pressed back against the drywall and... [collapse]. In the fraction of a second when my hand started going through the drywall, my brain said something like, "Bubba, this is a bigger problem than you think."

I couldn't fit my head inside the vanity to see what was going on, so I enlarged the hole enough to stick my digital camera inside and take a few photos. The picture seen here is a very wet 2x4 stud. Apparently, the leak had been there a while, and had only recently started getting bad enough to start dumping water out under the mouldings.

Rotating the camera upwards, it became apparent where the leak was. It also clearly shows the easily recognizable grey flexible pipe known as polybutylene. Truly, this is a product manufactured by Satan, for the purpose of creating rich plumbers.

Here, you can see the copper stub extending just a few inches up from the shutoff valve. You can also see the brass compression rings used to hold the pipe together at joints.

Originally, I thought this was not a big deal aside from the damaged stud. Just run down to Home Depot, get $5 in parts and splice out the leaky portion, then fix everything else at leisure. But, my handy-dandy do-it-yourself plumbing book did not say anything about how to repair this kind of piping. So, I jumped on the Web and started searching for some advice on how to fix this stuff.

Oh man, did I get more than I bargained for. Thousands of hits, but mostly discussing class action lawsuits, completely repiping the house, and terrible horror stories of flooded houses, insurance companies flat out dropping policies if the house has polybutylene pipes... Bubba, what did I step in to?

It turns out, there was a whole industry created as the result of PB pipes. Not only are the bloodsucking (and sucking other things too) lawyers getting paid, but practically every major plumber in Phoenix (and I suspect most other places) is an "Expert poly repipe specialist".

So, for the privledge of having my walls torn up while a SWAT team of plumbers slaps copper pipes in, I get to pay $4,000, not including repainting what gets torn up. At least they sub out a drywall company to fix the walls...

What is interesting, of course, is that $4K is getting off lightly. Many people walk down this road when a pipe bursts in their attic while they are at work, and they come home to a house filled with 20,000 gallons of water. Imagine reporting this to your insurance company, and instead of receiving a claim check, you get your policy dropped. Bad day for Bubba.

At least one of my neighbors noted that his house was re-piped by the previous owner already. Another neighbor just had a similar leak repaired, although elected not to re-pipe. Many of my co-workers and friends have their houses plumbed with this stuff, and some have friends that have suffered through this experience.