Help with lead pipe replacement please

[Broadback]

This is the scenario.

A little lead piping in the house, though mainly copper. Lead pipe from the water board roadside stopcock, along the garden into the lounge under the floorboards, diagonally across the lounge into the pantry, via a many times painted stopcock up into the bathroom, then into a copper system.

I am refurbishing the house, starting in the lounge, when finished I do not want to remove the floorboards again.

Tentative plan.

Dig a hole and expose lead pipe near the house. fit connector to blue plastic pipe fed across the lounge and up to the copper piping in the bathroom. At a later date replace the remaining lead pipe with blue plastic.

Is that practical or will the underground (initially plastic to lead then plastic to plastic connector be too vulnerable over the years?

Any comments or fresh ideas welcome.

TIA John

[Set Square]

Sounds ok in principle. If you're worried about the lead to plastic (ultimately to be plastic to plastic) joint, could you put that *just* inside the house so as to be accessible - with a small trap in the floorboards to get at it?

Not sure whether you can get lead to plastic in a single fitting. You may need 2 or 3 bits - going lead to copper and copper to plastic.

[Alex]

Are you sure it's lead and not galvanised steel? I only say that after I made a complete prat of myself when talking to the water board! If it is actually lead, most water companies will replace it up to the stopcock for free with 25mm MDPE. They also have the use of a mole system, possibly saving you a lot of digging work and disruption.

I live in a Thames Water area, and found that I had a very small leak in the incoming main. It was too small for them to pinpoint, so they replaced it all with mdpe.

Actually I've just remembered that they will only do this to the house boundary, they went up my driveway, then into the house, rather than under the floorboards as I was planning.

Alex

[Harry Bloomfield]

on 08/04/2004, Broadback supposed :

Talk to your local water supply people, I think there is a health policy to replace all lead piping and they may well replace it for free if made aware of it.

[Toby]

Fine but I feel that the mdpe should not rise above the floorboards, you should transition to 22mm copper for the route up to the bathroom.

You could easily leave enough slack under the lounge in the form of a 3m diameter coil so that it can be extended to towards the pavement stopcock without having to form another joint.

Buried 750mm underground nothing much is going to disturb it, that would be my preference.

You can, such as item 13545 at

or Leadlok fittings at a merchant

[Dave Plowman]

IIRC, this requires testing the water (at your expense) for lead concentration above the permitted amount. And it's unlikely to be so even in a soft water area with a short run of pipe.