Poly B or Kitec? How to tell, and why it matters in Ottawa
Two different pipes, two different eras, one very similar conversation with your insurer. In Ottawa, Kitec is the one more people turn out to have.
| Poly B | Kitec | |
|---|---|---|
| Installed | Late 1970s to about 1998 | About 1995 to 2007 |
| Colour | Grey, sometimes blue, white or black | Orange for hot, blue for cold |
| Feel | Soft, bends easily by hand | Stiffer, holds a bend — aluminium core |
| Fittings | Crimped copper or brass ring over an insert | Chunky brass compression fittings |
| Markings | PB2110, CSA B137.8 | Kitec, KTC, IPEX, PEX-AL-PEX, CSA B137.9/.10 |
| Why it fails | Chlorine and heat degrade the wall; brittle fittings; over-crimping | Dezincification corrodes the brass fittings and restricts flow |
| Legal history | Class actions in Canada and the US; a US settlement of about $1.14 billion repaired over 320,000 homes | Canadian class action settled in 2011; the claim deadline passed in January 2020 |
| Replacement work | Effectively the same job — new PEX to every fixture, then patch | |
Why Ottawa sees more Kitec
Poly B was heavily used in Alberta and British Columbia. Ontario builders used it, but the province caught the following wave harder: Kitec went into a lot of Ottawa housing built through the late 1990s and 2000s, including condos and townhouse blocks, right up to the 2007 recall. If your house is from 1985, look for grey. If it is from 2001, look for orange and blue.
Either way the compensation window is shut. The Kitec settlement fund stopped accepting claims in January 2020, and the Poly B class actions are long resolved. Replacement is now a homeowner expense.
The one difference worth knowing
Kitec tends to fail at the fittings, and those fittings are often the only accessible part of the system — under sinks, at the manifold, behind the washer. That makes a partial, fitting-first replacement more defensible with Kitec than with Poly B, where the pipe wall itself is the ageing component. Ask a contractor to price both approaches if that is what you have.
Poly B, Kitec, or still not sure?
The contractors we work with replace both. Describe what you found and they will confirm it.