Does your home have flood-prone Polybutylene pipes?

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HOMEOWNERS ALERT!!!

Why You Should Have Your Pipes Checked in your home:

In the 1980’s litigations over leaking plumbing due to polybutylene pipes began in California and Texas. The eventual Class Action settlement of $1 billion (Cox v. Shell Oil) in 1995 was enough to ensure that polybutylene water pipes were no longer acceptable by U.S. building codes. From the years between the late 1970’s till the mid-1990’s polybutylene was being used widely through houses. It is estimated that at least 6 million homes were built using this material. The material was being used throughout the sunbelt, meaning Arizona is one of the states being hugely affected by this. Now what is the problem with this? Well Polybutylene has an unusually high failure rate since it is broken down easily by chlorine and mineral levels within the water. When polybutylene comes in contact with oxidants in tap water it becomes brittle and fragile. This causes the pipes to break from the inside, cracking and eventually leading to leaks, causing massive damage. Further reasons for poor quality piping:

  • Water quality
  • Pipe fittings degenerating
  • Chlorine and mineral levels
  • Age of piping and fittings
  • Poor installation by the previous plumbers

The piping will eventually start leaking, usually within 10-15 years after installation. When a pipe begins leaking without the homeowner’s knowledge the damage can become very extensive. For this reason, it is very important to know the dangers of polybutylene piping and eventually re-piping your house.image2

Where you’ll find polybutylene piping in the home:

Polybutylene piping is used to supply water from the main city water line into a home. Polybutylene piping is typically found in the following locations:

  • Interior
  • Entering the water heater
  • Feeding sinks, toilets, and bathtubs
  • Exterior
  • Attached to the home’s main water shutoff valve
  • Attached to the home’s water meter

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Cost of Damage:

If polybutylene is left inside of a house and is allowed to cause damage, the cost will be huge. Insurance coverage sometimes will cancel or even refuse give policies to homes with polybutylene piping. Making it very difficult to market the homes or even to fix a leak or flood caused by plumbing. The damage that a ruptured pipe line can incur is between $40,000-$120,000 depending on how bad of a rupture it is. However, re-piping a house is much cheaper than this, for a 1500 square feet home with 2 bedrooms, the average cost would be around $5,000-$7,000.dollar-499481_960_720

CopperStone Plumbing, LLC.  will be happy to help you determine if your home has polybutylene piping, and beyond that we will help you re-pipe your home. Save yourself from having a flood destroy the equity of your home.

 

CopperStone Plumbing, LLC. ROC# 313712

602-790-7565/ 602-663-6348

www.copperstoneplumbing.com

copperstoneplumbinghs@gmail.com

Green RO

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With the Green Reverse Osmosis system you get the same high-quality water and you save water. The Green Reverse Osmosis System uses only 25-35% of the water used by a conventional reverse osmosis system. This is a completely new technology offered by Pentair. This system is designed to give you high-quality water and a worry-free purified water for drinking and cooking. The system is available with a 36, 50 and 75 gallon per day production option. This high quality system will provide outstanding water from private wells or municipal supplies. We may not save the world, but we will be helping and
so will you with this reverse osmosis system.

Check out the link below for more information.

Green RO Brochure

Source: http://www.bandrindustries.com

 

 

 

Running your Water Softener smart: Some tips

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How do customary resin-based water softeners work? The answer to that might help you choose the right settings for yours.

First, salt is needed to create a brine solution. This solution needs to be run over resin beds from time to time, recharging them. The resin beds are then able to draw hardness out of the water. In effect, the resin bed attracts hardness elements. But as that bed wears down through use, it needs a fresh jolt of brine from time to time.

The control valve on the softener regulates how much brine is created and when. And that’s where you might be able to save salt.

Begin with the assumption that the average person uses 70 – 75 gallons of water every day, although this could be lower if you have high efficiency fixtures, and manufacturers sometimes use slightly different assumptions. The hardness level must be determined next.

Let’s take a simple example.

If the device is a 40,000 grain softener, this means it can treat that many grains of hardness between regenerations. Let’s suppose the water has a hardness level of 20 grains per gallon. You divide the grain capacity (40,000) by the hardness level (20) and come up with 2,000 gallons of water between regenerations.

Next multiple the number of users by 75, the average number of gallons used daily. So a household of two people would use about 150 gallons every day. That is divided into 2,000 to get around 13. That means the softener should go into regeneration mode about every 13 days.

Based on your own circumstances, you can calculate the right setting for yourself. You may wish to consult a certified water treatment professional for help determining your hardness level, if you do not know it already.

Remember that settings should be revisited from time to time to achieve not only the ideal level of softness but also efficiency. Water treatment professionals follow best practices for choosing efficient softener technologies and system settings. This includes the proper sizing of equipment and proper settings to minimize water consumption and salt usage, avoiding over-treating of water, and by-passing outside sillcocks so that softened water is used only inside the home.

Don’t forget to use vacation settings, when available, to avoid needless regeneration when they aren’t using water. Especially for temporary residents in the state – those who are likely to leave for several months – shutting off a softener can be a wise decision.

Source: http://wsspa.org/tips

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