Polybutylene Pipes in Tampa Bay Homes: How to Tell and What to Do

If your home was built in Tampa Bay between the late 1970s and the mid-1990s, there's a real chance some or all of its water supply pipe is polybutylene. It was cheap, easy to install, and used in a huge number of Florida homes during that building boom. It also turned out to fail without warning. Here's how to tell if you have it and what to do about it.

What Polybutylene Looks Like

Polybutylene (often called "PB") is a flexible plastic pipe, usually gray, though you'll sometimes see blue or black. It's typically stamped with the code PB2110. The fittings that join it are either plastic or copper or aluminum crimp rings.

The easiest places to check are where pipe is exposed: next to the water heater, under kitchen and bathroom sinks, behind the toilet, and where the main water line enters the house. Keep in mind that the short pipe stubs coming out of the wall at a sink are sometimes copper even when the pipe inside the wall is polybutylene, so look at the water heater connections too.

Don't confuse it with PEX. PEX is the modern flexible pipe, usually red, blue or white, and stamped "PEX." It's what most repipes use today.

Why Polybutylene Fails

Over time, the disinfectants in municipal water react with polybutylene and make it brittle from the inside. The pipe can look fine on the outside and still be weakening. Failures tend to happen at fittings and joints, and they can go from no problem to a burst pipe with no warning sign in between.

Polybutylene was the subject of major class-action litigation in the 1990s and stopped being installed in new homes. Homes that were never repiped are now 30 to 45 years old, which is well past the point where failures become common.

The Insurance Problem

Many Florida homeowners first find out about polybutylene from their insurance company, not a leak. Insurers often ask about the plumbing type, and some won't write or renew a policy on a home with polybutylene, or charge more for it. If you're buying or selling a home from that era, the inspection report will usually flag it.

Should You Repipe?

Fixing one leak in polybutylene doesn't fix the rest of the system. The other joints are the same age and material. If your home still has polybutylene, a whole-home repipe with PEX or copper is the permanent fix, and it removes the issue for insurance and resale.

Most repipes are done in a few days. The new lines are run through walls and ceilings with small access openings that get patched afterward. Repipes require a permit, which your plumber pulls as part of the job.

Common in These Tampa Bay Areas

We see polybutylene most in neighborhoods that grew fast in the '80s and early '90s: parts of Carrollwood and Northdale, Brandon and Bloomingdale, Countryside in Clearwater, and the earliest homes in Westchase. But it was used all over Hillsborough and Pinellas counties.

Not sure what's in your walls? Believe Plumbing can take a look and give you a free estimate for a repipe. See our pipe repair and repiping services or contact us.