Asbestos & Lead Water Supply Pipes

ShadyCharacter · 16 December 2017 at 7:41PM

Hello all,

Apologies in advance if this topic is already dealt with somewhere. I'm new to this forum so haven't figured everything out fully just yet. I hope you can bear with me!

I'm looking to buy a house, but I have no idea how to find out about these two things: whether any of the materials used in the build of the house contains asbestos, and whether the water supply pipes are lead or not.

If the only option to find out about the asbestos is to get someone in to test everything then I suppose I'll have to do that. But I've just come here to ask everyone for their advice (& also because I still don't know how to find out about the lead pipes - unless that's something you talk to the local Council about).

I wanted to post the links to the 3 properties I'm interested in here, but since I'm a new poster on this forum it won't let me. So maybe if you have any questions about them which might help in knowing about the asbestos & lead pipes then let me know.

I asked the owner of one of the houses about it & they don't know about either the asbestos or the lead pipes. I doubt the owners of the others know either, but in any case I haven't ask them yet.

What do you guys think? Is there anyone who could point me in the right direction?

AdrianC · 16 December 2017 at 7:46PM

Nobody can say for sure without doing a lot of work on the actual properties.

How old are the properties? If they were built before roughly the 1980s, then assume there is asbestos or lead somewhere, and you will only be pleasantly surprised.

Bear in mind a huge swathe of the population live in older properties, which almost certainly do contain these things, and are still alive.

G_M · 16 December 2017 at 8:06PM

If you get a survey done, tthe surveyor may spot and comment. Especially if you specifically ask the surveyor for this info.

But
a) he is likely to say at most "ceiling tiles (or whatever) may contain asbestos" & recommend a specialist asbestos test
b) he'd have to dig up the mains pipe to check for lead - and the seller might resent him digging up their front garden!

bouicca21 · 16 December 2017 at 8:26PM

I was long ago told that in a hard water area, the pipes will be so furred up that water and lead never meet.

If you really need to be that sure, you will probably have to find a plot of land (obviously after checking for contamination) and build your own place.

ProDave · 16 December 2017 at 8:30PM

I spent the first 26 years of my life in a house with a lead water supply pipe. My sister (now 57) still lives there and I am pretty sure it's still the same lead supply pipe.

EachPenny · 16 December 2017 at 10:21PM

bouicca21 wrote: »

I was long ago told that in a hard water area, the pipes will be so furred up that water and lead never meet.

I don't think this is true. The minerals in hard water normally require something to happen to cause them to come out of solution (e.g. heating of the water or evaporation). The supply pipe contains only cold water which isn't heated and therefore there is no trigger to cause deposition.

I helped remove a lead supply pipe from a 1930's house a couple of years ago. The water was relatively hard, but the bore of the pipe was quite clear. There were traces of white powdery material inside the pipe when it dried out, but that might well have been products of oxidation of the pipe rather than limescale.

The health risks associated with lead are well known, the cost of replacing the supply pipe is not astronomic. Replacing a supply pipe which is known to be lead, at least up to the point of the main drinking tap, wouldn't appear to be a difficult decision to make.

theoretica · 16 December 2017 at 10:45PM

dwi.defra.gov.uk/consumers/advice-leaflets/lead.pdf

As well as looking at the pipes to see if they are lead you could get the tap water tested for lead.

dimbo61 · 16 December 2017 at 10:52PM

I had the lead mains supply pipe replaced with the new Blue plastic one a few years ago.
The house did not have mains gas so a new trench was needed to get mains gas central heating.
Cost about £500 at the time.
However if you look for a modern house say something built in the last 30 years it should have a plastic mains water supply and plastic/copper pipes inside the property.
Asbestos has not (I Hope ) been used in house building for the last 30 years.

Carrot007 · 16 December 2017 at 10:53PM

Only reason to change a lead supply pipe is if you don't get a good flow rate.

Was soooo slooooow in my last house I did.

Was cheap too. But I dug the trench to the boundry and put in the new supply plastics. Water company replaced their part and all was good.

If the flow is good keep it but run water for a bit (30 secs ish) if you are gonna drink it. Might be an issue if you have a water meter though.

Davesnave · 17 December 2017 at 4:13AM

House purchase can be worrying enough without finding theoretical things of concern before a property has even been offered-on!

A buildings survey will offer pointers, but in the case of asbestos, each suspect material would need to be lab-tested for certainty. Lab testing is one thing and understanding the level of risk in the results is another.

Buying a house under 30 years old would give significant reassurance in these matters, but two other environmental contaminants, namely radon and particulates in the air around the property, have not been mentioned. I'd find heavy concentrations of either more concerning than lead water pipes or the typical amounts of asbestos found in most houses, both of which would be under my control once I owned.

AdrianC · 17 December 2017 at 11:19AM

We had the lead feed pipe in our old house replaced - but only because we were having the kitchen done, and if you so much as looked at the old pipe, it just collapsed into a mass of leaks.

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Asbestos & Lead Water Supply Pipes

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