Water Supply Pipe

sazzel84

Hi, hope some one can give me some advice! I had the lead content in my water checked by my water company (Northumbrian Water) & the results were high so they have replaced the communication pipe & advised me to replace the supply pipe. When looking at the pipes in my house I think i only have one lead pipe (connecting downstairs to upstairs). When I've looked online to find out how I can tell what my supply pipe is made of it says to look under sink where the supply pipe enters the house, i might sound stupid but the supply pipe enters my house from the front & so runs through the living & dining rooms & the pipes under the kitchen sink are plastic. The stop tap is in the dining room & this has copper piping (apart from the lead that runs upstairs). So my question is how do I find out what the supply pipe is made from??? The house was built around 1920 & I bought it recently from a family member who lived in it for 10 years & the only pipework that was done was new radiators & new bathroom installed. I don't want to spend money on groundwork if there's no real need to. Hope you can help! I'm very confused lol

Cardew

Hi, Welcome to the forum.

You may get some better results if you cut and paste your query into the
In my home (includes DIY) MoneySaving forum of MSE.

There are quite a few tradesmen, builders/plumbers etc that offer advice in the forum.

unclebulgaria

sazzel84 wrote: »

Hi, hope some one can give me some advice! I had the lead content in my water checked by my water company (Northumbrian Water) & the results were high so they have replaced the communication pipe & advised me to replace the supply pipe. When looking at the pipes in my house I think i only have one lead pipe (connecting downstairs to upstairs). When I've looked online to find out how I can tell what my supply pipe is made of it says to look under sink where the supply pipe enters the house, i might sound stupid but the supply pipe enters my house from the front & so runs through the living & dining rooms & the pipes under the kitchen sink are plastic. The stop tap is in the dining room & this has copper piping (apart from the lead that runs upstairs). So my question is how do I find out what the supply pipe is made from??? The house was built around 1920 & I bought it recently from a family member who lived in it for 10 years & the only pipework that was done was new radiators & new bathroom installed. I don't want to spend money on groundwork if there's no real need to. Hope you can help! I'm very confused lol

If your water company have replaced the pipe supplying your property because its lead then there is a very good chance that the pipe coming into your property is defo lead. Where you see the copper piping coming up to the stop !!!! its very likely a small piece of copper "sweated" into a length of lead piping. The only way you could be sure would be to replace the pipe supplying your water into the house from your boundary right up to the stop !!!!. If you have internal lead piping it may be a good idea to have that taken out too or wait until you need work carrying out then have it done then. Depends how long you want to be ingesting the stuff.
If you know that the floors have been replaced then maybe the piping was replaced at the same time?