Lead pipe replacement (under concrete floor) worth it?

Discussion in 'Plumbers' Talk' started by wood, Nov 23, 2018.

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  1. wood

    wood Member

    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
     
  2. KIAB

    KIAB Super Member

    Don't even bother, reroute & lay a new MDPE pipe from your boundary stop cock to the stop cock in house, a lot easier option than digging up a concrete floor.

    Definitely want to replace it, as you may find, it may start leaking having been distrubed.

    Trench 750mm min depth outside, sleeved (ducting) pipe going through wall.
     
    Last edited: Nov 23, 2018
  3. wood

    wood Member

    Thanks KIAB,

    The quote is for reroute option :(. The only sensible place for the new stopcock is behind my downstairs toilet and below my combi boiler. The toilet and waste pipes etc. need to be removed beforehand to give enough place drilling holes. My plumber claim its two days work and the quote includes VAT of course. Is the quote higher than it should be? Cheers
     
  4. KIAB

    KIAB Super Member

    So what's distance from boundary stop cock to new house stop cock, most of work is trench digging.

    Put up a photo of proposed new stop cock location.
     
  5. wood

    wood Member

    Thank you KIAB,

    My downstairs toilet is just another side of the wall. The distance would be 1.5m from the outside joint. I think most of the cost would be digging a hole behind my toilet. The job can be tricky as the place is rather limited as you can see in the photo. My plumber claimed that the toilet, waste pipe connected to the toilet and the panel behind toilet meed to be cleared out before doing anything. He might simply do not want to do the job at all? It'd be really helpful if you can share some ideas on it before I hand my hard earned money over. Thanks a lot!
     

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  6. KIAB

    KIAB Super Member

    £700 seems excessive to me.

    Is it easy digging, or through concrete.
    Can you just remove cistern, so you can remove that back panel without removing toilet.
    What's other side of the cistern wall.

    Where does soil pipe for toilet go,down into floor, that's the only thing you need to miss.

    I've done them in the past where I have cored drill a 65mm hole (wiggle room & insulation) in floor down to meet up with hole made from outside through wall.
     
  7. wood

    wood Member

    Hello KIAB,

    It is through concrete unfortunately(however the concrete is not that deep). The decoration panel behind toilet is just 40cm deep, in which the soil pipe of toilet sits. The outside is soil so no problem there. However a manhole is located but the pipe might be able to go around / below it. It's a tricky job I can see:(. This is why I wonder if it's worth all the trouble for the money. I know the best is to get rid of all of lead pipes but I am very tempted to leave it (for the last 1-2m long) [​IMG] only because the cost involved. One thing to mention though that I have two teenagers who are bit moody at the moment and wonder if the cleaner water would help at all [​IMG]

    Thanks a lot!
     
    Last edited: Nov 23, 2018
  8. wood

    wood Member

    Here is the job list if it helps :) Thanks very much.

    REMOVE TOILET IN DOWNSTAIRS CLOAKROOM.
    REMOVE PANELLING TO DOWNSTAIRS CLOAKROOM BEHIND BOILER.
    DRILL HOLE TO EXTERNAL WALL TO A DEPTH OF 750MM.
    FIT HOCKEY MDPE SLEEVING FOR NEW WATER MAIN TO GO THROUGH.
    FIT NEW MDPE ISOLATION VALVE AND CONNECT INTO EXISTING COLD SUPPLY.
    FIT ACCESS HATCH.
    CAP OF OLD SUPPLY PIPEWORK IN UTILITY ROOM.
    BACKFILL HOLE WITH CEMENT.
     
  9. wood

    wood Member

    Is it a reasonable quote before I sign it up. Thanks for any advice.
     
  10. The Teach

    The Teach Screwfix Select

    fairly reasonable,remember its winter and decent busy plumbers can charge what they like. Maybe if its not an urgent job just leave it for the summer when plumbers are less busy and hopefully not all are enjoying the med sun on their sunseeker yachts :p
     
  11. wood

    wood Member

    Cheers The Teach,

    How you think of calling the project off and tolerate the 1-2m lead pipe? How dangerous are they really? :)

    Cheers
     
  12. chippie244

    chippie244 Super Member

    If they were that bad the human race wouldn't exist.
     
  13. wood

    wood Member

    My water board has run lead content test for me. The readings are: unflused 0.7ug/l and flushed 0.2ug/l. I understand the current legal limit is 10ug/l.

    It's worth the effort to get the reading from 0.7 - 0.1 ug/l (0.1 is the perfect reading from the test as I was advised)?

    Thank you!
     
    Last edited: Dec 11, 2018
  14. Severntrent

    Severntrent Screwfix Select

    I'm with Chippie, if its a lead pipe its been in decades if not 100+ years. if you are in a hard water area the are probably scaled up
     

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