# look what I am gonna have to fix sometime soon



## Master Mark (Aug 14, 2009)

Repaired the elements on this water heater 2 weeks ago and they still dont have good hot water.... I am pretty sure this poly pipe under the heater has a leak in it somewhere in the slab...
The meter is moving and stops when you shut off the water heater so they got troubles somewhere in the slab 

They want to get the leak located and repaired but I told them it was not gonna be my job to just patch this junk and they would need a total re-pipe

Then I purposely bid the job high and 

they are now getting other bids 

but eventually I think I am screwed......



https://photos.app.goo.gl/jufdRFxdxGKpBZ1U7


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## ShtRnsdownhill (Jan 13, 2016)

thats a nitemare...any way of running pipe above the slab? ceiling, attic or soffets ?


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## Tango (Jan 13, 2018)

How are you getting screwed? You think you will win the bid? I don't mess around the bush when I don't want a job I just tell them I'm not equipped for that and in any case everyone else will have lowball offers with a twists.


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## Master Mark (Aug 14, 2009)

Tango said:


> How are you getting screwed? You think you will win the bid? I don't mess around the bush when I don't want a job I just tell them I'm not equipped for that and in any case everyone else will have lowball offers with a twists.




You are correct, I am not really being screwed, I just dont want to lowball the job and get myself into a mess.... then if they take me up on the bid, I feel I underbid the work.... we would have to run it all overhead somehow... 

We are busy enough as it is... but it seems to work that way, feast of famine.


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## Tommy plumber (Feb 19, 2010)

Sounds like you may have mis-diagnosed the orig. call when you went out the 1st time; lack of hot water sometimes indicates a slab leak.


Anyhow, you could offer them a re-pipe on the hot only {assuming there is indeed a leak on the hot side under the slab.} 


When people have an old gate valve that won't hold, I tell them that in order to do an accurate test {for slab leak purposes} I need to repl. the gate valve with a new ball valve.


I don't really like offering just to re-pipe the hot only {it's like getting half a haircut}, but it is an option.


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## skoronesa (Oct 27, 2015)

I say bid high and hold your nose. I hope you have the patience of a saint to carefully break up all the concrete if they want it under the slab. Otherwise I am with you on just running pipes over head. Tel them like it is, one leak on the hot today, another leak somewhere else tomorrow. Why bother fixing one spot when the rest are likely close to follow?




.


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## Alan (Jun 18, 2008)

I haven't seen many of those gray PB pipes on actual homes. Usually just mobiles.

One giant condo complex was repiped with it many years ago. Glad I don't work in that area now. Makes me shudder just thinking about it.


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## Master Mark (Aug 14, 2009)

Alan said:


> I haven't seen many of those gray PB pipes on actual homes. Usually just mobiles.
> 
> One giant condo complex was repiped with it many years ago. Glad I don't work in that area now. Makes me shudder just thinking about it.



The job can be run overhead if they ever decide to do something about it... probably will wait until their is 3 feet of snow outside to decide to do it......




The PB is pretty rare around here now... lots of it got replaced back during the recall but their is still enough of it around to cause people a lot of troubles....

the big thing that pisses me off is the dumb ass home inspectors look right at this junk and then dont say a word about it in the inspection reports. 

Then I come around and tell them about the mess they have on their hands and they get mad at me ..:vs_mad::vs_mad:...


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## ShtRnsdownhill (Jan 13, 2016)

Master Mark said:


> The job can be run overhead if they ever decide to do something about it... probably will wait until their is 3 feet of snow outside to decide to do it......
> 
> 
> 
> ...



LOL you just stated the reason, the home inspectors dont want a bad wrap or they wont get called or recommended, I bet most have a deal with the real estates to give good reports and they get an additional fee if the house sells...


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## skoronesa (Oct 27, 2015)

One of my old bosses kept a piece of polybutylene with a sweat adapter(Machined brass, likely with a bit of lead as it was a heating fitting) on his desk. One of our guys pulled it out of a house. The adapter was near paper thin where it met the pipe. It had this weird pattern of circular corrosion where the brass was just dissolved. I know a lot about chemical reactions and galvanic issues but I still can't figure out exactly what went on. I can only assume the brass acted as the cathode.

https://www.polybutylene.com/poly.html


.


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## Tango (Jan 13, 2018)

All houses here for many years before 1995 were done with poly-B. We don't have issues that I heard of. I come in contact with it occasionally, I just transition to pex. I've had no issue with it and it been there for 30 years...

I tell people home inspector here are in bed with the real estate agent and all it takes is 34$ and you a legal inspector. Nothing else is required.

And like Mark said some get offended when I say inspectors in our are 450$ joke. They like to point out the report was one inch thick but evidently the inspector said nothing about the hack plumbing that I post in the soap thread.


Anyway I think its useless to recommend a repipe, no one is going to pay that much money to redo it.


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## ECH (Jul 27, 2018)

We have quite a bit of it here in NC. We do about 1 re pipe every week because the customers want it gone.

I helped on a similar job as the one your looking at, where the client just wanted the hot side of the house put in the walls/attic. It turned into a nightmare because when the plumber cut into the hot line before the leak and then tied back in on the other side, several branches were between where the splices were made, so several fixtures lost hot water. So then it turned into several days of running the whole house, cathedral ceilings, no attic, the works.

It was a kick in the balls. Then about 4 months later, there was a call back for a leak above the ceiling sheetrock. A pex crimp was weeping and finally showed on the drywall.

I still shudder when I drive past that house.


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