Lead water pipe replacement

onedayiwill

We have a lead water main in our new home. We knew this when we bought the house 2 months ago, and at the time we were told that we would be able to get a grant from the local council to pay part or all of the cost of replacement.

Recently contacted the council to find out details of the grant. Guess what ... they stopped it "almost 2 months ago" (right after we bought the house). Doh!

But, such is life.

I know there will be lots of factors involved in the cost of replacing these pipes, and that the cost that I get when I go out and get quotes will be different depending on our houses circumstances, but I wondered if anyone had had this type of work doing recently and if so how much it cost you? What did the work consist of?

Also, who do I get quotes from? A normal plumber? A builder? Some kind of specialist? I haven't got a clue....

Many thanks for your help.

latecomer

Ours is being done as an extra from our builders who are doing an extension. They quoted £750 if they could use the pipe they already had or £850 if they had to buy more pipe. I wasn't concerned where it terminated in the garage and hence went with the cheaper option. Now waiting for Scottish water to connect it at the street end. We are having a lot of work done and I suspect they didn't really want the job but felt obliged to quote anyway. They had a mini-digger on site so it wasn't like a lot of extra manual work but thats what they quoted.

Hope thats of some use.

jhe

we phoned the local water board for advice when we replaced ours. they were very helpful and told us the depths the pipe had to be laid.we did the donkey work and got a builder to connect the pipe inside the house .the water board came out to check we had laid the pipe at the minimum depth and they connected it to a point just outside our property

Dozer_2

You could always contact the waterboard first and get your water tested to see if it's necessary to replace the lead pipe. We have a lead water main and contacted the water board who came out for free and took samples of our water. They also tested other houses on the street at the same time. They tested the first draw of the day and the amount of lead in it was way below the recommended safe levels despite the water being standing in the pipes overnight. What they did find though at my house was higher than normal levels of Nickel so came back again, but this turned out to be from the new tap we had fitted in the kitchen.

muckybutt

I was once put under notice by my local water board for a leaking lead pipe, we had a shared supply doing 3 houses mine being the last one, there used to be an outside toilet where the pipe also went, anyhow I was salvaging the bricks one day and noticed the pipe leaking so called the water board as I couldnt isolate the supply as the stop !!!! in the street was seized.
After a visit from their engineer they said they could not replace it but would replace the stop !!!!, that they did after two days, then I got a registered letter saying they were giving me 7 days to fix the lead pipe or they would appoint a contractor to do it for the pricely sum of £800 !
So I got the stuff needed next day and did it mesen for just over £80.

gmgmgm

It's very very unlikely to cause any problems. So unless you know (written fact from an expert) there is a problem, I wouldn't worry about it.