30-year old building pipes - time to replace? any other options?
 

What are the options (preferably less expensive) for "plumbing
problems" like leaks in a 30-year old building?

Should a second (or even third?) opinion be obtained before spending
$90,000 on pipe replacements?

fancy nospam tunes wrote:

What are the options (preferably less expensive) for "plumbing
problems" like leaks in a 30-year old building?

Should a second (or even third?) opinion be obtained before spending
$90,000 on pipe replacements?

This would be a 30 yr old, 14 story hi-rise rental prop, right?

What kind of building? Might be easier to blow it down and rebuild.

--

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
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"fancy nospam tunes" wrote in message
om...
What are the options (preferably less expensive) for "plumbing
problems" like leaks in a 30-year old building?

Should a second (or even third?) opinion be obtained before spending
$90,000 on pipe replacements?

In article ,
says...
What are the options (preferably less expensive) for "plumbing
problems" like leaks in a 30-year old building?

Should a second (or even third?) opinion be obtained before spending
$90,000 on pipe replacements?

If it's approved in your area, it's often less expensive to line the
existing pipes with blown-in epoxy than to re-plumb the whole building.
Generally doesn't require tearing open walls, and if it's a large
building (I'd hope so for $90,000), you have a lot less down time and
loss of rents.

--
is Joshua Putnam
http://www.phred.org/~josh/
Braze your own bicycle frames. See
http://www.phred.org/~josh/build/build.html

On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 20:28:06 -0800, Joshua Putnam
wrote:

In article ,
says...
What are the options (preferably less expensive) for "plumbing
problems" like leaks in a 30-year old building?

Should a second (or even third?) opinion be obtained before spending
$90,000 on pipe replacements?

If it's approved in your area, it's often less expensive to line the
existing pipes with blown-in epoxy than to re-plumb the whole building.
Generally doesn't require tearing open walls, and if it's a large
building (I'd hope so for $90,000), you have a lot less down time and
loss of rents.

How do you blow epoxy into all the pipes without plugging up the
works??
--
Elbridge Gerry, of Massachusetts:

"What, sir, is the use of militia? It is to prevent the
establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty. . .
Whenever Government means to invade the rights and liberties of
the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order
to raise a standing army upon its ruins." -- Debate, U.S. House
of Representatives, August 17, 1789

In article ,
says...

How do you blow epoxy into all the pipes without plugging up the
works??

I've seen it at work on big condo buildings, fascinating to watch.

They start with huge air compressors. Remove all the fixtures and cap
all the pipes except one circuit at a time. First they run sandblasting
grit through the pipes to clean them out -- they can even restore full
interior diamter on massively encrusted old galvanized pipe.

Then they blow through the epoxy -- the air flow makes it form a uniform
film on the walls of the pipe without plugging anything. You end up
with a continuous epoxy coating from one end of the line to the other.
They do need to bridge around any valves in the system, of course, so
the valves will still work. But that's no big deal, the valves are in
an exposed location so it's still a lot simpler than tearing open all
the walls.

Besides re-lining to prevent or repair leaks, it also encapsulates and
lead in the pipe or solder, so the system has also been used for lead
abatement in schools.

--
is Joshua Putnam
http://www.phred.org/~josh/
Braze your own bicycle frames. See
http://www.phred.org/~josh/build/build.html