Poly B questions, answered plainly

Nothing forces you to replace it. Plenty of Poly B is still holding water after forty years. What has changed is the cost of being wrong: insurers have tightened how they treat it, and a supply line that lets go while you are away is a restoration claim, not a plumbing bill. Most Ottawa homeowners replace it on a planned schedule for that reason.

Look in the least finished part of the basement, at the shut-offs under sinks, and around the water heater. Poly B is a flexible grey pipe, usually held on with a crimped copper or brass ring, and it is sometimes stamped PB2110 or CSA B137.8. Kitec looks entirely different — orange and blue with brass fittings.

For a typical Ottawa home, plumbing labour and materials usually land in the four to eleven thousand dollar range, with larger two-storey homes and fully finished basements pushing past that. Drywall and ceiling repair is a separate line item and is often where a quote moves most. Our cost page breaks the ranges down by house type.

Usually not. Water is off for a good part of each working day and there will be dust and open drywall, but most repipes on a normal Ottawa home run two to five days and people stay put. Larger homes with awkward access take longer.

The form is free and there is no obligation. The contractor pays us a referral fee when we send them a homeowner. That is the whole business model, which is why your details go to one company only and we do not resell them.

A single failure can be cut out and spliced, and that is the right answer in an emergency at 11pm. It does nothing for the rest of the system, and insurers ask whether Poly B remains in the home rather than how much of it.

A whole-home repipe in Ottawa normally requires a plumbing permit, and the contractor should pull it. The inspection is worth having: it is the documentation you will want for your insurer and for a future buyer.

Effectively never. Policies cover sudden and accidental damage, not replacing a material the insurer considers risky. What replacement can do is remove a surcharge or an exclusion at your next renewal, so ask your broker what the policy looks like afterward.

PEX is cross-linked polyethylene and it is the standard residential supply material in Canada today. It is a different polymer with a much better field record over thirty years of use, and it is what nearly every repipe uses. Nobody can promise you fifty years, but it is not the same product with a new colour.

Someone should be there each morning to let the crew in and to agree on where things get opened. You do not need to supervise, and you do not usually need to move out.

Because three companies calling about the same job is three walkthroughs to schedule, and the prices rarely line up anyway once each one scopes it differently. We match your house, your basement finish and your timeline to the one company on our list best set up for it. If the quote does not suit you, tell us and we will introduce you to another.

They hold an Ontario plumbing licence and carry liability insurance and WSIB coverage, they do whole-home repiping as regular work, and they respond to homeowners quickly. If a contractor generates complaints, we stop referring to them.

Nothing. The contractor pays a referral fee if we introduce them to you. You are never obliged to hire them.