replacing lead water pipe

Hello,

I have discovered that I have a lead water pipe and that it is shared with my neighbour. I have contacted the water company and they have told me that I will have to change the bit on my property.

I have a concrete path down the side of the house, so hiring a big drill to dig it up could be fun.

I was going to ask how deep should the water pipe be but the recent post "replacing services to the property" gave me some useful information. In that thread, 30 inches was given as the depth and it was suggested to use the largest MDPE pipe allowed (32mm).

That thread also talked about running ducts for various things. Would you run the water in a duct. It would make it easy to replace in future but you would lose the colour coding as the blue pipe would be hidden.

My main worry is hitting another service. How do you avoid hitting the gas and electricity: just dig slowly and carefully?

I do see two problems if I go ahead and replace the pipe.

  1. My neighbours might not want the expense of having their branch of the lead pipe removed. How would I cap the pipe? I've never worked with lead, so I might need someone to do this for me.

  1. My house is slightly higher than the neighbour's house. There are about five steps up from the street to my house. Could this mean the pipe is very deep? Would it be 30" below street level, rather than 30" below house level, or would the pipe just have to follow the slope and steps and be 30" below the surface.

I'm hoping the water company is sending someone out to have a look and chat with me about this.

Thanks, Stephen.

Reply to
Stephen
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Do you have share a stopcock out at the street? If so, then would the water company consider separating the stopcocks? Everything inside of there is your problem. Stopcock and outside is their problem.

From experience of when we found lead from stopcock to house at our old place, it's fine until you so much as look at it - then it just turns into a colander to spite you. I wouldn't even try to do anything to it unless the neighbour is happy to tie-in. If you really, really want to - and they don't - then I'd be tempted to leave all the lead in place, and run a complete new blue from a new street stopcock to a new internal stopcock and connection to your internal plumbing. Then turn the old internal off, cross your fingers, and just ignore it.

I can't imagine they won't be happy to change from a shared street stopcock, because they just can't meter it as it is now.

The lead pipe itself is usually so well lined with decades of deposits that there's no lead in actual contact with the water, so no health risk.

Reply to
Adrian

Why? What has prompted this?

Basically. And try to map out the route. If you have only one end visible (where the service comes up in the house) it will be at best guesswork. There sometimes are other clues.

Another option is to get a specialist contractor to mole the pipe in. The gas companies seem to do this as a matter of course. Water and electricity not, for reasons I do not know. But you could find your own contractor - worst case 2 holes at the ends and maybe another in there needs to be a sharp turn in the route.

In theory services can be detected and mapped - electricity is easier - it emits electomagnetic fields. Gas - well, I've seen surveyors using some really funky looking device in London to apparently trace gas mains, but I assume it must use acoustics - and it might well not work on a very small pipe with sod all flow.

Ah here:

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Bloody amazing, modern tech...

It would probably all cost more than employing a couple of labourers with instructions to hand dig.

Reply to
Tim Watts

That is generally only true if the water is considered to be hard. Soft water is generally acidic and has a reputation for dissolving lead, though admittedly still in very small quantities.

Reply to
Fredxxx

Why are you wanting to change it? If you are in a hard water area, it will have an internal scale coating by now.

I think it's actually 750mm depth. If you can't make it that deep, there are insulated sleeves you can use. I couldn't go that deep because the supply wasn't that deep, so I taped a length of 1mm T&E along the pipe with all conductors (including the earth) crimped and soldered together at the far end. If it ever froze, I would pass a heating current along the cable. IIRC, it was 15m long, and I found a 12V electronic lighting transfer with 250W output would dump something over 200W into the cable (you can't just work it out using resistance, because the skin effect predominates given the high frequency supply).

Nowadays, it gets run in ducts through things like concrete foundations, although not normally the ground. The duct might well carry any leak into the house, which might not be desirable.

Yes, and have an idea where they are. I had to tunnel under the gas pipe to make it deep enough. Gas pipe was bright yellow plastic covered steel, although they can just be plastic (exactly same as the water pipe, but yellow). Although I crossed the path of the mains cable, I did not find it, presumably it was deeper. Old ones can be quite fragile.

I bought an MDPE to lead coupler - there may be similar caps. You are not suppose to leave a deadleg on a water supply pipe, as it will become stagnent water, and might trickle bacteria back into the supply.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

Yes, it is shared but I think the pipe tees under my property, so I would have to run new pipe to the pavement.

The document from the water co. says you cannot do this as it creates a dead-leg and they will inspect that the old pipe is removed.

Reply to
reply

I have just moved in and found there was a lead pipe (I know I should have spotted this before I bought, not after!)

Reply to
reply

I cannot find a lead stop end but from googling and finding web sites where other people have done this, it seems that other people have used a lead to copper coupling and put a stop end on a short length of copper attached to that.

I have completed the forms for the water co. so someone will visit to give me more advice.

Thanks, Stephen.

Reply to
reply

Beat flat, fold over several times and solder.

Reply to
Nightjar

Lead pipes are usually only a problem if you live in a soft water area.

Reply to
Nightjar

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