Plumbing Repair: Epoxy Coating or Repiping
Galvanized and Copper Fails Requiring Hiring a Building Contractor
Feb 24, 2009
The plumbing pipes in modern homes are active on a daily basis and are subjected to pressure, chlorine, and expansion and contraction due to cold and heat. Whether they are made of copper, galvanized steel, or PVC, eventually they degrade. Repiping is a major headache and means hiring a plumbing contractor.
Residential Repiping
This conventional repair method entails cutting into walls, removing the existing plumbing, installing the replacements, followed by patching, drywall taping and floating, texture matching, and painting. This is a messy job and the homeowner can expect to be inconvenienced for a week or more, depending on the size of the home.
The licensed plumbing contractor will need to submit paperwork, pull building permits, and comply with inspections by city officials according to most local building codes.
Introducing Epoxy Coating
A better solution exists. This process involves applying an National Sanitation Foundation (NSF) barrier coating (epoxy coating) to the inside of the pipe. The developer of the leading system for this type of pipe restoration is ACE DuraFlow and is the system most likely to be offered. The actual work may done by a local plumbing contractor.
Benefits of Internal Pipe Coating
- It's a green building, environmentally-friendly process, since it avoids throwing old pipe into the landfill, and doesn't use hazardous chemicals in the plumbing repair preparation step.
- The homeowner saves money. This is a substantial sum in labor costs involving other subcontractors, including the sheetrock repair, painting, and cleaning up the mess that conventional repiping involves.
- The inner surfaces are permanently isolated from water, chlorine, and other corrosive elements.
How the Renovation Process Works
The process is straightforward. Using the conventional repair method, the construction workers never know exactly what they are going to find until the walls are opened up. All of that is avoided with this newer method
- The plumbers drain the piping system that's being restored.
- Valves, shower heads, faucets, etc. are removed as necessary. PVC pipe is removed as well. Plastic is not treated with this system. Plastic is usually located at the end of the line anyway, and is so inexpensive to replace that it makes more sense to do just that.
- The plumbing is connected to a system of hoses that will be used for the rest of the steps in the process.
- The inside of the galvanized steel or copper undergoes convection baking with compressed, heated air to dry them fully and for preparation for the next step.
- The system is burst sanded to remove rust and corrosion and to prepare the internal surface for proper adhesion. The grade of the abrasive material depends on the material and the amount of corrosion present.
- The internal surface is now coated with the protective NSF epoxy barrier coating.
- New shut-off valves are installed on the pipes.
- The entire system is flushed with water to prepare it for use by the homeowner.
The homeowner is now free to use the plumbing fixtures, secure in the knowledge that nothing will leak.
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