Lead pipe replacement (under concrete floor) worth it?

IamWood

Dear All,

I am living an old house in Wiltshire. Unsurprisingly the main water supply pipe is lead. Thanks to Wessex Water, who kindly replace the old lead pipe with MPE pipe right down to my side wall under the lead pipe replacement scheme recently. However there is still a 1 -2 meters lead pipes under my kitchen floor which is concrete. Wessex Water advise me to replace them as well to rid of all lead pipes. I have trouble finding a plumber doing it reasonably. The quote I have is about £700 as job would involving removing my downstairs toilet and back panel etc.

I have to make decision:
1) live with the rest of lead pipe ( 1- 2m). 2) Spend my hard earned money to install a new main stopcock. Is it worth the trouble doing that since most of the lead pipes are already gone?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Cheers, Wood

trailingspouse

We have a similar problem - we've replaced all the lead work in the house, so all that remains is appx 3m under our drive, between the meter and the house.

We've made the decision not to change it.

a) the pipe is probably well coated on the inside, so the water we are drinking is not directly touching the lead
b) we use a water filter for all drinking/cooking water (Maxtra) which specifically mentions lead removal.

c) the people before us in this house had lived here at least 25 years, and seemed fairly OK (strange taste in wallpaper, but I don't think that's a side-effect of lead poisoning...).

IamWood

Cheers trailingspouse,

I am very tempted to leave it only because the cost involved. I know the best is to get rid of all of lead pipes, especially I have two teenagers who are bit moody at the moment and wonder if the cleaner water would help at all :rotfl:

Any discussion would be appreciated.

Thanks

sol2017

I did some research into the subject when I bought my house and concluded it's ok to live with lead pipes if you take some precautions namely run water in the morning before using or drinking it. It's the standing water that's potentially harmful because it might have absorbed lead overnight but there won't be any substantial amount of lead after running water for a minute or so.

Btw, while I also have Brita Maxtra filter I understand that it doesn't actually remove lead (or doesn't remove it all, sorry can't remember). There are more specialised filters for that purpose.

Carrot007

For me the only reason to repalce would be if it was slowing down the water. That's why I it at my last house (and they only did their bit to the property border. I had to dig around a 15 meter trech and put plastic pipe in for them to connect to the new cut off! In fact I made a mistake and the pipe ended up not reaching the they connected it and left it off! I bought a couple of meters more (well actually a lot more it was cheap!) to get it to the house) Anyhow enough blathering on!).


That said I did not remove the lead, made a good earthing point. Also the house was full of lead in the walls from old gas lights (though the urge to put it out could not be resisted if you spotted a bit! And sorry, more blahthering on!)


So if it's a good pressure repalce. Otherwise don't. If you are in a hard water area the pipe is probably coated internally but then again that would probably make it run slow.


All that said, I'll drink any water from any tap. Countries where people belive the hype! (probably big water consipiricy ;-) ). In an bathroom with signs saying this warter is not for drinking. Just run it a bit first and you are fine.

Tom99

Is there not an alternative route the pipe could take which does not involve digging up the floor?

societys_child

Tom99 wrote: »

Is there not an alternative route the pipe could take which does not involve digging up the floor

That's what I'd be looking to do. Abandon the lead and find an another route.

EachPenny

Carrot007 wrote: »

All that said, I'll drink any water from any tap. Countries where people belive the hype! (probably big water consipiricy ;-) ). In an bathroom with signs saying this warter is not for drinking. Just run it a bit first and you are fine.

Up to you of course...

...but if I were planning to do that I'd follow the pipe run all the way back to the tank in the loft which has a couple of dead pigeons floating in it and is used as a toilet by the rats... and then decide that no amount of 'running it for a bit' is going to make it safe to drink. :shocked:

southcoastrgi

It won't make any difference whatsoever, save your money

trailingspouse

The Maxtra filter we use states that it 'reduces metals like copper and lead'.



We also avoid boiling and reboiling the same water - only boil what you need, rather than filling the kettle right up, using a bit of it, boiling it again and so on.



Yes, we're probably being a bit overcautious (I grew up in the 60s in a house with 100% lead piping, so any damage is likely to have been done a long time ago!!) - but I can definitely taste the difference between the filtered and unfiltered water.

IamWood

Thanks to all.

My water board has run another lead quality test for my water. The readings are: unflushed 0.7ug/l, flushed 0.2ug/l. The current standard is 10ug/l.

Some scientific research claims there is no safe limit on lead content (scary reading btw). Still tempting to throw my hard-earned money on it as we may live here for at least 8 years before my two boys go to university etc.

Thanks again!