Phase One Plumbing

A homeowner had a pipe burst last night, luckily he was able to get a Plummer right away, the pipe coming out of the hot water heater had a pin hole leak in it, enough to cause a leak all the way to the first floor damaging insulation and sheetrock. Two years ago a section of pipe a foot from this section on the other side of an elbow joint split in half causing significant damage to the same home.

This time however the Plummer had informed the homeowner that all of the pipe in is home is defective, yes defective there has been several law suits including at least one class action suit and there may be another one, basically if you have the terracotta colored DURA PEX pipe and connectors in your phase one home you have the defective pipe.

After doing a lot of research on the internet it seems to be a lot of people in the Charlotte area that have the most problems with this pipe, it is susceptible to getting pin hole leaks, cracking in half, and the connectors are known to completely fail.

The experts say its not a matter of if it will fail but when, most failures seem, to happen on the hot water side coming out of the hot water heater first but can occur anywhere in the line. The only real fix is to completely replace all of the pipes in your entire home.

Many homeowners have had this problem in our community before some have had 3 or 4 leaks like this, but we are only now learning that the pipe is considered completely defective.

My first suggestion is get a plumber to replace the first several feet of the old pipe coming out of the hot water heater as this has been the most common first point of failure, this should be relatively inexpensive, and could save you from a big headache later on.

Here are some links discussing this issue further:

http://audetlaw.com/investigations/nibco-pex-products-breach-warranty-investigation/

http://terrylove.com/forums/index.php?threads/why-would-nibco-cpi-durapex-pex-split-lengthwise-and-leak.21075/

http://gotaclassaction.com/nibco-inc-named-in-class-action-lawsuit-over-cross-linked-polyethylene-plumbing-tubes/

http://www.nachi.org/forum/f54/dura-cross-linked-polyethylene-nibco-problems-38109/

ARC Request for Painting Front Doors in Phase 1

A homeowner sent the following ARC request to Kuester today for his home and is also aaking to allow this option for other Phase 1 homeowners:

I am requesting to be able to paint my front door black, leavig  frame white exactly the same as phase 2 homes, attached is my completed ARC request form. I am also asking the HOA to allow all pbase 1 homeowners to paint their front doors if they desire to match phase 2. Phase 2 has several different color doors, black, white, dark brown, dark blue, dark burgandy, and dark green. This has less of an impact in phase 1 as the front doors are not directly visible from the street, as they do in phase 2, but this ties the phases together making it look more like one neighborbood.

Well update you as soon as the homeowner recieves and answer,