Replacing Lead pipe between street and kitchen

Oh_No

HI,


I have had a quote to replace the lead pipe between the street and the kitchen stop tap (you know what I mean but it blocks that word!). I have spoken to the water company and it is my responsibility and they will not do it / get involved (other than do the final connection if I do nto used an approved plumber).


The quote is £950. This is for about 20meter run, and involves all ground work and making good, including making the connection to the main (they are approved). The house is approximatley a metre above road level too (so some extra digging I presume).


Does this sound to be in the ball park? I have had troble getting others to come round / quote. Most are not interested in the work and some (including from the approved supplier website) simply do not call back.


If you need further detail please ask!

martinthebandit

Well the first question is why?

Oh_No

martinthebandit wrote: »

Well the first question is why?

I have a one month old and therefore need to purge the pipes before use. I have had the water tested and know that the concentration of lead is double the limit until purged. I do not live in a hard water area so there is no scaling up of the pipe.


Purging in theory is fine, but it is very wasteful and is liable to lapses in remembering to do so. additionally, you purge the closest cold tap to thestopcock, which means all other outlets are not purged. Longer term, how am i going to stop a child drinking from other taps. Also there is some concerning information out there about young children bathing in 'leaded' water, which of course i cannot purge the hot water as I have a water tank not a combi.


I guess the main problem is that the more I read into it to try to justify not doing it turns into another reason to do it.

Aylesbury_Duck

Purging might be wasteful but you're never going to waste £950 of water so economically it doesn't make sense but a desire to save water is commendable.

I think you're worrying about drinking from other taps unnecessarily. None of us (four of us, two children) have ever drunk from any tap other than the kitchen sink because all the other taps are supplied by the tank in the loft, which my children understood from an early age isn't as clean as mains water. What's the concern over bathing in leaded water?

Whilst of course it's natural to want to protect a young child, you need to establish a sense of proportional risk. If you live anywhere near a busy road there is probably greater risk of respiratory health problems from that than there is from drinking water with small concentrations of lead in it.

If it were me, I'd save the £950 and adopt a regime that minimises the risk. Once a child is old enough to spontaneously decide to drink from other taps they are old enough to understand that they shouldn't.

neilmcl

Oh_No wrote: »

I have a one month old and therefore need to purge the pipes before use. I have had the water tested and know that the concentration of lead is double the limit until purged. I do not live in a hard water area so there is no scaling up of the pipe.


Purging in theory is fine, but it is very wasteful and is liable to lapses in remembering to do so. additionally, you purge the closest cold tap to thestopcock, which means all other outlets are not purged. Longer term, how am i going to stop a child drinking from other taps. Also there is some concerning information out there about young children bathing in 'leaded' water, which of course i cannot purge the hot water as I have a water tank not a combi.


I guess the main problem is that the more I read into it to try to justify not doing it turns into another reason to do it.

Flushing the toilet in the morning would be enough to "purge" the pipes, you don't need to go round a run every cold water tap, and as mentioned you should only ever drink from the main kitchen tap anyway.

As far as digging up and replacing services on public land, £950 seems reasonable.

sajjed

We renewed ours years ago with alkathene pipe.
I wasnt happy with lead pipe and we were getting a kitchen extension.
Cannot comment on the price we dug our own,
But the water company check the pipe depth etc before they will connect it to the mains. If they are not happy with where the pipe is they will not connect it

sl_jones

I have a similar issue on the house i am buying, we had a survey come back and they said the following

Lead pipes are vulnerable to leakage and also considered as unhealthy. It is not always possible to see the incoming water main and therefore identify the type. Bringing a new supply into the house could be expensive depending where the main supply is. If this was necessary then there are certain regulations that apply.

But I am unsure of what that all means really, does he mean because it's lead and we are drinking the water?

I haven't looked into this yet but I imagine I need to contact Thames water (which is who suppliers the water) and then get a plumber to change the connection in the house or does that £950 just come from the water company and you have to get someone to do the rest?

Aylesbury_Duck

sl_jones wrote: »

I have a similar issue on the house i am buying, we had a survey come back and they said the following


But I am unsure of what that all means really, does he mean because it's lead and we are drinking the water?

I haven't looked into this yet but I imagine I need to contact Thames water (which is who suppliers the water) and then get a plumber to change the connection in the house or does that £950 just come from the water company and you have to get someone to do the rest?

It's the usual cautious wording from the surveyor. You haven't paid for them to expose the main and so they cannot verify what material it's made from. As such, they have added the caution about lead pipes. If your water supply comes through lead pipes then the water will carry a small amount of lead with it. As the OP has been advised, by running the tap a short while, you are draining water that's been sat in the pipe and using water that has only just passed through it, thereby reducing its exposure to lead. Have a read about the health risks, they are minimal if managed correctly and as I explained above, there are many other unhealthy things we're constantly exposed to that we often don't bat an eyelid about. Until unleaded petrol entirely replaced leaded, we were all inhaling quantities of lead every time we drove or were near roads. Now we're inhaling the carcinogens from unleaded fuel and nitrous oxides from diesel vehicles.

The £950 is what OP has been quoted to replace the pipe. There may be an additional cost from the water company to connect it.

southcoastrgi

What are you gonna do about the lead pipes still used on the company side then ?