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Galvanized piping

If you have galvanized piping in your Phoenix home you’ve likely experienced low water pressure, rust particles in your water, shortened lifespan of your plumbing appliances like your dishwasher, water heater and washing machine. Galvanized piping when originally installed has a coating on the inside to protect the galvanized metal from rusting and becoming corroded, unfortunately that coating doesn’t last forever and once it is worn away the galvanized metal immediately begins rusting. As the inside of the pipe rusts the pipe’s inside diameter is drastically reduced, sometimes reducing down to a trickle of water being allowed to pass through. As the galvanized metal continues to rust it begins to leak at the weak points. Galvanized pipe is not easily repaired, nor should it be. Any repair on a galvanized water line is considered temporary and just a Band-Aid. Galvanized water lines are ridged pipe that are assembled with threaded fittings. Attempting to remove the piece of pipe that is leaking from those threaded fittings inevitably turns into chasing down more and more leaks while continuing to open drywall and trace down a “good enough” piece of pipe to thread to. If you have a galvanized water line, we highly recommend replacing the pipe, whetherit is inside your home or a water service line coming in from the street. In the long run replacing the pipe completely is more cost-effective than attempting repairs and your home will benefit from improved water volume, water pressure and you won’t have rust particles filling up your water heater, dishwasher and washing machine anymore.

CPVC piping

CPVC piping is still used to this day by some companies and in colder weather appears to last longer than we’ve experienced here in our Phoenix desert. CPVC is a ridged plastic pipe that simply becomes very brittle with time here in Phoenix area homes. If you’d like a more in-depth explanation of CPVC check out our informative blog. Once you have a CPVC leak it is often our recommendation to replace the pipe rather than continue to have leaks. Once the CPVC pipe is brittle enough to leak you can almost certainly guarantee more leaks with time and the flood damage that is potentially a consequence simply isn’t worth the risk in our professional opinion.

Polybutylene Piping

Poly piping is no longer a legal pipe to use in the USA and that is because the chlorine in our water weakens the pipe and causes leaks, which of course causes flooding. There are a few pockets of homes still in the Phoenix area that have polybutylene piping and if you have a home with this type of pipe you should seriously consider budgeting to replace this pipe. The class action lawsuit is long over and the materialsto repair this pipe are no longer sold. Polybutylene pipingis our number one requested quote for new homeowners looking to buy a home, and for good reason, none of us wants to buya ticking time bomb and come home from work to a flood.

Slab Leaks

Slab leaks are what’s known in the plumbing profession as a leak on a domestic water line below the slab. If you have a slab leak it is usually that you have a copper water line below the slab of your home that is leaking. Copper is a great pipe and when installed in perfect conditions can last 75-100 years. It has been our professional experience that most slableaks occur due to poor backfill under the slab. What I mean by that is dirt that isn’t perfectly soft and has small pebbles or rocks in it. Most slab leaks occur on the hot line, which is why many are called in as a hot spot in the floor. The hot sideis more prone to leaking because the hot pipe expands and contracts every day for years up against debris in the dirt surrounding it and the pebbles, rocks and debris slowly erode a hole through the copper line creating a pin hole leak below the foundation. 15 Years ago, it was common to open the floor and repair the slab leak but what we’ve found is that there was an extremely high percentage of clients who had repeat slab leaks either in the same area or further down the line. The reason multiple slab leaks are such a common occurrence is because the pipe is all the same age, under the same conditions such as backfill, water quality, pressure, and use. Therefore, rerouting the water line that is leaking is a better option than opening the floor and repair a single pin-hole leak. Rerouting the water line overhead eliminates that water line from below the foundation and runs it overhead, usually in Pex piping. This completely illuminates the possibility of a reoccurring leak on that line. The next bestoption is to replace all of the water lines that are underground in copper overhead 100% eliminating the possibility of any further slab leaks on other lines. Going through a reroute isn’t fun, which is why we typically recommend just getting the pain over with in one fail swoop if it is in our client’s budget to do so. It is more affordable to repipe an entire house in one project than to piece it apart into multiple reroutes of water lines.

Multiple Leaks, even on copper Pex

If you’ve experienced multiple leaks on your homes plumbing, then we highly recommend a repipe of your water lines no matter what kind of pipe it is. Multiple leaks on water lines is an indication that something is very wrong, either defective pipe, a poor installation, poor fittings, or water conditions that don’t meet the needs of your plumbing system. Many insurance carriers will drop their clients over multiple leaks unless the home is repiped.

Roof Rats

The last reason we’d recommend a repipe, or at least a partial repipe is roof rats. A lot communities in the Phoenix area struggle with roof rats. Roof rats love fruit trees and they love comfy attic spaces so no matter how clean you are, if your community struggles with roof rats it is incredibly challenging to get rid of them. Roof rats love to eat through plastic pipe which many homes have. The roof rats eating through the plastic water lines in your attic can create a lot of damage. This is typically when we replace the plastic lines in the attic with a durable copper that the rodents cannot eat that the rodents cannot eat through.

Services in Phoenix & Beyond

When you’ve found yourself in need of plumbing services in the Phoenix, Glendale, Scottsdale, or Chandler area, you can trust Robins Plumbing to provide you with prompt and expert care, contact our team today! In addition to our toilet services, we also offer a variety of residential and commercial plumbing services, including: drain cleaning, water heater repair and replacement, sewer camera inspection and locating, backflow prevention, commercial and residential jetting, water treatments, trenchless sewer repair and more. Visit our reviews online to see what others have to say about our local plumbing company!