Old lead pipes in Victorian house & drinking water supply?

[52andblue]

A lead pipe running under the basement floor (orig. basement but concrete more recent) in the house is leaking (up through the floor).
It also feeds into the general water supply it seems (ie drinking water - is this dangerous? - can it be replaced?) Ugh ugh ugh.

Oh dear!

If the floor has to be dug up to fix it, you may as well get it replaced, but in general many many houses still have lead pipes. Most are coated on the inside by now with limescale, cutting the risk. And if you run the tap for a while in the morning, and before filling the kettle or for drinking water it will be safe.

This is normal with old lead pipes. I strongly recommend that you replace it with new plastic pipe (in a larger size, 25mm or 32mm) all the way from your internal stopcock to the connection under the pavement. Ask your local water co to test your drinking water for lead content BEFORE you start work, there may be a lead replacement subsidy or they may at least reconnect free or replace their own pipe at the same time. Get the request in straight away as there may be a delay.

Any subsidy scheme may be hard to find, presumably due to poor website design or possibly a desire to hang onto their money.

It is easy work for anybody who knows how to use a spade.

Plumbers are weedy little fellows with petal-soft hands so may need a burly woman to dig the trench. It is harder is there is much concrete in the way but a local builder or a moler can do it.

The water co may encourage you to use one of their panel of contractors but this will add to the price and is not obligatory. They will inspect the trench before you refill it to verify it is deep enough.

The new pipe dies not need to follow the same route as the old one.

Replace lead pipe inside the house with copper, at least to the kitchen tap and the boiler.

Use larger diameter new stocks to match the bore of the new pipe (they are more expensive and some plumbers may try to skimp).

You are likely to have greatly improved flow and can install an unvented cylinder for unsurpassed hot water later, if you like. Run 22mm copper all the way to it.

Thank you BOTH for replying :)

@BogForLife Replacing the floor would be a nightmare as it is tanked (although it is not great tbh and floods every few years)

@PigletJohn thank you so much for such comprehensive info.
I am in Scotland so don't know if the guidelines are the same but this all sounds sensible? The house was built in 1880 and I imagine this pipe is original as the basement was there from the get go rather than a 'created' London type one that's been dug out (originally it was a basement and ground floor house and then the owner came into more money and put two more floors on).

I replaced the boiler and rads and all pipes (that I was aware of) in 2010. The boiler was moved up from the basement to the kitchen (a mistake but expensive to move back..). I think this pipe is the one that used to lead to that and was capped off by the workmen then (cowboys, since gone bust). I am not exactly sure where the lead pipe runs and cannot dig up the whole floor (two rooms of around 12ft x 12ft plus two corridors). Is there a lead pipe detector thingy (technical term!) available do you know?

If if is capped off, try to find where it enters the basement and replace outside. That's better than finding the leak because it will probably leak again. It will very likely be in a straight line from the external stopcock.

Sometimes you can find a leak by pressing an Engineers Stethoscope to the ground, and I hear a thermal camera may show the temperature difference if it runs close to the surface.

Water companies didn't apply any regulations retrospectively so although lead pipes aren't installed these days there's plenty of older properties with lead pipes. Generally if you're in a hard water area then its not generally a problem. I would recommend that when you draw water first thing in the morning that you allow the tap to run for a while to clear standing water from inside the pipe. A litre per metre from the street is a good guide.

If you decide to replace your supply pipe then you can do it yourself but you will need to get the water company to turn the whole area off while they reconnect your supply into the main in the road.

The supply pipe needs to be made of blue pipe (available from DIY stores and builders/plumbing suppliers) and installed 2ft 6in deep, which gives it protection from frost. If your external stop tap is in a public footpath or highway then you can only excavate up to your boundary but need enough pipe to meet the stop tap. Put sand in the bottom of the trench to protect the pipe from hard objects. The water company will want to inspect the work before its filled in. We hired a man with a mini digger when we did ours as digging clay soil by hand was too onerous.

you can do it yourself but you will need to get the water company to turn the whole area off while they reconnect your supply into the main in the road

No need if there is a stopcock or water meter under the pavement.

In some cases they will not charge if it is a lead replacement.

@PigletJohn is there an easy way to find out if the pipe feeding a house is lead? e.g. would the water company know for sure? Our house was built in 1929, all internal pipework is copper, but I'm still a bit paranoid about potential lead coming from the outside pipe. We're hoping to get the front driveway re-done some time this year (fingers crossed!), so maybe we should swap the feed pipe while everything is dug up? Or maybe we should just let it be

get them to test the drinking water

1928 probably iron, and would benefit from being replaced in larger plastic before the leak gets worse. They tend to leak at the elbows first due to cavitation corrosion.

Thank you @PigletJohn. I'll look up our local drinking water testing options. Do you have a view on the safety of plastic pipes? In our previous house, I was convinced water had a strong 'plastic' taste first thing in the morning if we didn't let the tap run for a few minutes. Given all the recent concerns about microplastics and PBA, this kind of suggests plastic can be the new lead Or am I being too woo-woo?

Apologies for semi-hijacking the thread OP

i always let the tap run on drinking water before using it, esp first thing in morning.
you could save it for watering garden etc if you wish.
did you do this where you thought it tasted plastic.

*BPA

Blue Plastic pipes are polythene, for drinking water, and are used for mains in the road as well.

I don't think they are hazardous.

@alexdgr8 Yes, I did that, and it usually eliminated the plasticy taste. I guess sometimes I was impatient in the mornings and didn't let water run for long enough. But that made me wonder about the safety of plastic pipes in principle. I mean doesn't that indicate they're always leaching into water, we just can't taste smaller amounts during the day, when tap is used regularly. But what if there's a cumulative effect? Thanks for not laughing out loud at me @PigletJohn

It won't feed into the public water supply, it will be running off the public supple (water only goes one way in the network!).
If it's been capped off then it shouldn't be an issue but it should have been capped at the junction with the mains supply, not at the end with a length of pipe still holding water as this can be a serious contamination risk.
Have a read of this www.scottishwater.co.uk/your-home/your-water/lead-and-your-water