This has now happened 3 times in my primary residence.
I find a puddle on my basement floor, look up and a copper pipe is dripping very slowly from the middle of a length of pipe, its not at a joint, and the rest of the pipe is dry. Just a spontaneous pinhole leak.
So far I've been lucky, this keeps happening in the basement, but now these last two are only a few weeks apart.
What would cause my copper pipes to corrode spring spontaneous leaks? This last one was in a part of the ceiling with a drop-ceiling that has not been touched for months. The other 2 leaks were in an 'unfinished room' where I figured I probably hit them with something I was moving. But this last one is clearly an undisturbed pipe spontaneously leaking.
Should I not be drinking my water? Should I be getting the whole house re-done with PEX? Home was built around 1989.
Thanks for any ideas.
For a hot water heater to blow up, it would be a faulty pressure relief valve combined with a limit failure on either a gas or an electric unit, both on the unit itself, a blowup wouldn't be caused by the guy running pex to it.
Cross connections getting people sick? Maybe if they confuse the 1-1/2" to 3"waste line with the 1/2" pex and tie them together. You'd have to be next to brain dead to screw that up.
That $10K Licensed "pro" will probably not even be doing the job himself, he'll probably send the dropout who's been working for him for six months, or one of the guys he hires out of the bar to do your work and be around your family. Eitherway, you wont be getting $10K worth of plumbing, that price is *WAY* too high.
We all go through life taking varying levels of risk, This is one I'm willing to gamble on, hiring a competent handyman. Overblown scary scenarios don't phase me.
If anyone plans on being in the real estate business, especially at start up and plans on solely using only licensed trades to do all your repair work, then your gonna have a tough time making money at it. $10K here, $3k there adds up way too fast.
Every investor here should have a good handyman that they can call to do this kind of work both reasonable & right, or better yet, be able to do it themselves.
This is coming from a licensed contractor / new home builder who has been in the construction field for 25 years. I hate seeing people get screwed.
It's hard to say. Copper is supposed to have a useful life of 40 years. You are way less than that time frame. Is there another type of metal touching it? The hangers are supposed to be copper, but if someone used steel hangers from gas pipes, they will cause it to corrode. Brass is the only metal I know of (other than copper) that should ever touch copper pipes.
I had a leak once in an upstairs bathroom and had to cut out a section of wall and replace a section of pipe. I couldn't figure out why it leaked in that spot.
Your water is probably safe to drink. Does it taste weird?
One cause could be electrolosis , dissimilar metals touching each other , another cause acidic water eating the copper from the inside out , third it could be bad pipe , in the early 1980's they built houses near me with copper pipe , after 15 years they were all having problems with leaks .
Prepare yourself to replace the pipes in your house , its going to need to be done .
Pinhole leaks in copper are not well understood. I've heard theories about minerals in the water, and poorly done joints causing micro-currents which in turn cause excess erosion at those point of the pipe.
Given that it's happened multiple times I'd be nervous about leaving the rest in the house, personally In my mind I'd be making plans to do just as you suggested - replacing everything with PEX. It's relatively easy to route for replacement purposes and is a good DIY option if you're inclined.
You wouldn't want to spring a leak within a wall unnoticed!
First, the water is safe. But to ease your conscious call your water utility and ask the pH of the water (they are required to test this regularly so its no additional work for them. Between about 6.5 and 8.5 is fine (7.0 is neutral)). Also ask if they recently changed or repaired the mains in you area (if the mains have been, the delivery pressure may have been increased slightly and while water meters usually dampend this they do not stop it completely.)
Second, while Rob K is correct that there could be cathodic corrosion occurring that usually requires a moist environment which inside a house would indicate other problems.
Other possibilities are a just a bad (weak) batch of copper piping. It happens but not often or bad installation (check the joints for weeping). Don't forget water hammers could also being causing the problems, but you should have noticed them if that is the problem.
I would look at replacing the pipes regardless of the cause.
As a plumbing contractor I have seen this many times. Is it always on a hot water line, on many occasions if your have a circulating pump all the constant water movement literally wears the pipe from the inside out. Dissimiliar metals touching the pipe somewhere could also be the problem as others have stated above. Its hard to go wrong with PEX for a replacement.
Great responses above!...
Also, check your water pressure at a hose bib. A pressure gage at Home Depot is under 10 bucks. Sometimes street pressures can spike or sometimes your pressure regulator goes bad and you'll see leaks, but those usually occur first at joints and faucets. Always worth a quick check though because if the pressure is too high (90 psi or more) fixing one leak will not cure the problem and you will end up with more leaks!
David, I've had this happen at my apartment complexes. The cause has been a combination of two things, cheap thin walled pipes, and hard water. Installation of a water softener helped reduce incidents, but eventually the pipes will need to go. Rather than getting crazy and tearing the place up, I've just replaced sections as leaks have developed.
Amazing fast replies everyone.
I'd be happy to do the whole basement, but there are 2 floors above it, to get all the way up to upstairs bathrooms seems like a very big job to do preemptively.
I'll talk with the plumber about doing at least a really big patch.
I don't see any metal hangers, but about 15 feet from this leak there was a piece of steel or aluminum conduit? that was stored up in the ceiling, sitting on the block wall on one and and on this water pipe on the other. I've moved it. Its a piece of what they used to run power lines down the block wall to outlets. Could that just 'being in contact' be the root of my problem?
Hi David
we ran Pex by attaching it securely to the upper floor copper & pulling the attached 1/2" Pex down to the basement (3/4 would be tough to do). But we were lucky as the only place the copper was secured was easy to get to. They had obviously done a galv pipe retro fit many years before.
I found that the Cu was a very thin gage & it was because of a couple of galv interfaces they left attached to the lines. This was slowly sacrificing the Cu.
Now I do remember from my days in Elect Eng if the older homes elect ground wire is also attached to the Cu pipes & a dis-similar galv coated metal is buried in the soil it may be promoting advanced corrosion/sacrificing of the Cu. We had very salty/acidic soil in Australia & this was a common issue with older systems.
good luck
PS you should NEVER ground an electrical system to the water supply, but in the old days it was done & we see it still being done by amateurs because of ignorance.
I've done repairs for people that had the same pin hole leaks in their copper pipes, one was due to the well water we assume, the other due to a municipal supply that denies it. In both houses when we cut out the bad section, the inside of the pipe looked like nothing I had ever seen. Imagine dragging a piece of copper pipe down the PA Pike for 10 miles, that's what in inside of the pipe looked like. Both people didn't have the money to fix it all and just wanted patch jobs. This is one of the reasons why I love pex.
Got a quote of ~10,000 to PEX the whole house. 2.5 baths, kitchen, laundry, 2 hose bibs. 2 bathrooms+laundry upstairs, half bath, one hose-bib and kitchen on main floor, one basement hose-bib, hot water heater etc... plus they would put in the big control board thing for pex lines next to the hot water heater.
For today - $300 to replace about 8 feet of cold water pipe with PEX.
Lots of thinking about dropping this coin to prevent leaks that might happen or maybe I'm done for another few years?
Hi David - I'd be getting another couple of quotes minimum to make sure you are getting a market price. $10k is a lot of money and sounds high to me. How big was the home?
Also with your existing lengths of pipe - you can get copper to PEX fittings called 'SharkBites' and do this on the very cheap. If you use these SharkBite fittings you can literally press the connections on with no soldering. PEX pipe itself is incredibly cheap. Probably cut that project down to $50 tops (the SharkBites are not cheap).
3/4 pex is <50cents a ft
I just did about 200ft adding an on demand hw tank plus hot tub hot/cold spigot & including fittings it was $150 (excluding the hw tank).
I gave my maint guy $250 for a good 12 hrs work & we had some very tough tight connections.
David, $10K really? It amazes me how these guys "pros" can throw these numbers at people with a straight face, it must take a lot of practice.
Look on craigslist for a handyman and get it done for less than $1,500-2K, basic plumbing is not magic. Pex is so simple, if you played with Legos as a kid, then you have the aptitude to run& install Pex. Check out youtube videos to learn how it's done, so you'll know how to check their work or do it yourself.
I would strongly disagree with Mr. Carr. Would use use a dentist operating out of the trunk of his car? Plumbers are professionals and charge for their expertise. This quote my be a little high, so get more quotes from licensed plumbers, not handymen. Saving a little money now to have someone un-licensed to work on water lines could open you up to all kinds off legal issues down the road. Just imagine a improperly installed water heater blowing up or a water line cross connection getting someone sick.
For a hot water heater to blow up, it would be a faulty pressure relief valve combined with a limit failure on either a gas or an electric unit, both on the unit itself, a blowup wouldn't be caused by the guy running pex to it.
Cross connections getting people sick? Maybe if they confuse the 1-1/2" to 3"waste line with the 1/2" pex and tie them together. You'd have to be next to brain dead to screw that up.
That $10K Licensed "pro" will probably not even be doing the job himself, he'll probably send the dropout who's been working for him for six months, or one of the guys he hires out of the bar to do your work and be around your family. Eitherway, you wont be getting $10K worth of plumbing, that price is *WAY* too high.
We all go through life taking varying levels of risk, This is one I'm willing to gamble on, hiring a competent handyman. Overblown scary scenarios don't phase me.
If anyone plans on being in the real estate business, especially at start up and plans on solely using only licensed trades to do all your repair work, then your gonna have a tough time making money at it. $10K here, $3k there adds up way too fast.
Every investor here should have a good handyman that they can call to do this kind of work both reasonable & right, or better yet, be able to do it themselves.
This is coming from a licensed contractor / new home builder who has been in the construction field for 25 years. I hate seeing people get screwed.
Thanks for the feedback everyone, I'm not active in RE investing, still in the 'failure to launch/analysis paralysis' spot. I knew this group would know a lot about this topic, and I often need the kick in the pants about getting multiple quotes and negotiating. I have no trouble in my consulting business demanding that I get paid a high rate, but when it comes to buying, I'm a pushover.
I play great financial offense by pulling in lots of revenue. I play my defense by choosing to live modestly. My defense lacks: 'getting what I buy for the lowest price'. I will need to adjust that before getting into this business, it will erode all my profits but make for many happy vendors.
For now, I have 2 sections of PEX in the basement, and my fingers crossed. We may get a new master bathroom next year, maybe when all those walls are open, we'll attack the 'whole house PEX' project.
@David C. Since you are on a budget. Replace all the horizontal runs in the basement that you can now. Adding 20-100 ft of pex should not increase your current $300 cost measurably but for me it would add lots of peace of mind. What I have experienced is that the horizontal hot water runs are the ones that leak first. Then it's the horizontal cold water runs, then vertical hot water and finally vertical cold. Not sure why but that's what I've found.
I also agree that the cost is high for the total job, as well as the small repair. What is a fair hourly rate for a plumber? This job should not take even 1 hour and have less than $50 in materials. Even if you figure some travel time, it's still very high.
You can easily to it yourself for less than $50 with a trip to Home Depot.
For anyone who hasn't done any PEX plumbing, I highly recommend watching some YouTube videos on it and seeing how easy it is. The only special tools you need are a $17 cutter and a $65 wrench. It's gotten to the point where anyone can be a plumber.
I once removed all of the galvanized pipes and re piped a house in PEX in one day with no helper. It was a small house on a basement with only one bathroom, but it's amazingly fast and easy.
I just finished doing PEX in the SFR rental rehab I'm doing. First time playing with it, and it was no sweat (literally). I wasn't nearly as fast as Rob K, though.
The materials are awfully cheap, plus it's much easier than copper or CPVC in a rehab, given that you can snake and pull it through tight spaces.
I find a puddle on my basement floor, look up and a copper pipe is dripping very slowly from the middle of a length of pipe, its not at a joint, and the rest of the pipe is dry. Just a spontaneous pinhole leak.
So far I've been lucky, this keeps happening in the basement, but now these last two are only a few weeks apart.
What would cause my copper pipes to corrode spring spontaneous leaks? This last one was in a part of the ceiling with a drop-ceiling that has not been touched for months. The other 2 leaks were in an 'unfinished room' where I figured I probably hit them with something I was moving. But this last one is clearly an undisturbed pipe spontaneously leaking.
Should I not be drinking my water? Should I be getting the whole house re-done with PEX? Home was built around 1989.
Thanks for any ideas.
I have had to help two of my clients (full time GC) with this. Both houses had been plumbed with type M copper vs. type L which is thicker. After 20 years or so the pipe had gotten so thin that pin holes were appearing everywhere. PEX is a great fix. Once you invest in the pex tool it is very simple to run yourself.
Are these pipes type L, M or K?
Where did you get them, I would take a section of what you have replaced and see if you can determine the cause of leaks, take a look at the pin holes. Are they all over or they are "dotting a line"?
I have seen many copper drain lines with pin holes at the bottom, most times due to chemical put down the drain line, chemical such as Draino, and they would eat at the pipes and that's why the leaks are always at the bottom.
Your leaks are from pressurized supply lines, not near a fitting. Is it thinner at the spot where the pin hole is?
Also are those soft copper or rigid? I have seen where plumbers have bent soft copper pipes, and they end up "kinking" the pipe a little, that kinked spot is primed for leaks as it creates turbulence on the flow inside the pipe, same reason why after cutting copper pipes they recommend deburring, the shape edge may create turbulence which increase the potential for thinning the pipe walls there.
As for the 10K job, it's hard to tell without looking at your situation. I suspect most of the budget is not the actual plumbing of the pex, but to open and close access to the various manifolds you have around the house to connect the PEX to. In Florida's older homes we have no basement and copper lines were ran under concrete slab, so to redo with PEX you run the new PEX in the attic, but there is no avoiding opening up walls at each manifold location, and if those locations are behind kitchen cabinets, behind bathtubs...you have little choice but end up with a bunch of mini renovations.
One thing that should always be considered with the plumber vs handyman debate is insurance. If your state requires a licensed plumber to do the work and you have an unlicensed handyman do it, your insurance company won't cover if there's a flood later.
I have a customer that had a licensed plumber install a kitchen faucet. Simple job. Two weeks later she went away for a weekend and due to a manufacturer's defect the faucet broke and flooded her finished basement causing over $15 in damage. The plumber's insurance company covered the damages. If a handyman without insurance (most Craigslist handymen aren't insured) had installed that faucet, even her homeowner's insurance wouldn't have touched it.