While doing a repair, I had to remove old water supply piping in a home that felt like it was built in the 1800’s. As a two-month-old apprentice I was confused and a bit clueless about transitioning the water supply to modern materials. While I was alone on the job, I get the feeling I’m not the only one asking this question. Understanding the plumbing in a building is important. Whether you are selling your home or looking at becoming a landlord, knowing how to identify piping helps you avoid costly repairs. So let’s look at basic categories and the materials used.
Drainage and Supply
Plumbing does two jobs: it supplies water to fixtures and removes waste. While these jobs aren’t complicated, they require different qualities from pipe and fittings. Water supply materials need to withstand pressure, be user friendly, and endure temperature extremes. This is why PEX and copper are used in modern water supplies systems. Drainage pipe is rigid and thick! Since it is removing waste, fittings and pipe size have to accommodate air flow and remain sealed to prevent health issues and property damage. Fixing a badly done drainage job sucks and so I try not to be the guy that creates one when I’m building drains in a new home.
Drainage Materials from Old to New
Once upon time, plumbing was the occupation of on-the-clock bodybuilders. Both drainage and water supply used bulky metal tubing. Galvanized steel supplied fixtures and cast iron took your bathroom business out to the sewer. The trouble is cast iron rusts and the galvanized steel flakes off its coating into the waterline over time. (Yummmmm) Add hard water coming into your plumbing and eventually the flow rate in showers and faucets diminishes. If a home has galvanized piping or cast iron it’s likely older and not by a little bit. My Grandma’s home was built in the sixties and I dread the day she asks me to look at the drainage. Cast iron sucks. My dislike put aside, cast iron is troubling when you are looking at older homes because homes with this kind of drainage pose a strong possibility of expensive overhauls. It’s the last thing you want to worry about when you are moving into a home, so just avoid homes where older drainage hasn’t been replaced by the previous owner. The shortcomings of Cast Iron and Steel piping inspired what I call the age of plastics.
The 70’s marked the era of plastic plumbing or thermoplastic plumbing if you want to be nerdy about it. This new piping used pipe cements rather than threads to make connections. It was lighter and tough enough to handle use in cold environments. It was also cheaper, bringing down material costs. ABS (Acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene) began residential use around 1975 after decades of use on industrial applications. PVC (polyvinyl chloride) drain pipe was used as early as 1970. Each one uses a cement (but everyone outside a trade school classroom calls it glue) on connections and simplified residential plumbing. You can always tell PVC and ABS apart from each other because ABS is black and PVC is white. Both perform the same task but with different perks. PVC is more sound proof so when a toilet gets flushed it’s harder to hear sewage running through system. Unfortunately, it’s also more rigid making installation tough at times. PVC’s rigidity wouldn’t normally be an issue but supply warehouses seem to hire delivery drivers who failed out of being airport luggage handlers. Think on that for a moment. No pipe material seems to survive their ‘handling’ during jobsite delivery. Code also requires that fittings and pipe get a primer before applying glue to the PVC joint.
ABS is more flexible but it doesn’t hide the sound of sewage movement like its cousin. Its flexibility also makes it bow if left out in the sun like most pipe racks in supply yards but easily fixed. Plus, ABS glue doesn’t need a Primer.
Water Supply
Where Cast Iron was replaced by plastic, Copper trumped galvanized water supply systems until the mid-90’s. Copper isn’t toxic and it can be soldered. It’s rigid and looks pretty when done right so it looked good to homeowners during construction. But the rising cost of copper and time needed to solder a system pushed companies to make a better system. Enter PEX piping.
Used since the 30’s in Europe, PEX pipe (Polyethylene Cross-linked) was being used in the United States for radiant flooring jobs since the 80’s. With the rising cost of copper and expense of installation, PEX became the cheaper and faster alternative and replaced copper in common use by the 2000’s. Pex systems are easily spotted by the bright white, blue or red tubing using copper bands to crimp tubing and fittings together. But what does all this mean for you?
When you’re in the market for a home, make the drainage a top inspection item. If it’s cast iron, seriously ask yourself if a $10,000 surprise repair expense sounds nice. I’m not pulling this number out of thin air. I spent the better part of two weeks jack hammering a customer’s basement floor to reach the horizontal cast iron drainage that failed. While doing the repair, the homeowner took their bathroom visits to a porta potty on the driveway during one of the coldest winters on record. This problem didn’t stop at being expensive, it also impacted the customers quality of life, taking several weeks to restore the home’s drainage. As long as the home has intact drainage using plastic piping, keep the house on your list assuming inspection doesn’t spot any red flags or ‘additions’ by the homeowner.
For the same reasons, it’s also wise to avoid galvanized systems. It’s also very expensive to have galvanized water lines replaced with new plumbing and when your water lines experience a failure it impacts the whole house unlike a drainage failure for a toilet.
We seek comfort and rest from the outside world in our homes. We hope this article offers some perspective and advice that will save you from the expenses that ruin that disrupt that peace.
-The Lakeview Crew