Polybutylene pipes in homes built 1978–1995: repipe now or wait?

InterNACHI's inspector guidance describes it: polybutylene was manufactured from 1978 to mid-1995 for supply piping, is flexible, usually grey (sometimes white, silver, black or blue), half-inch to one inch in diameter, and is usually stamped "PB2110". It was never used for drains or vents — only the lines that carry water to fixtures. Look under the kitchen sink, behind the water heater, at the main shutoff where the line enters the house, and in the garage. Grey plastic with plastic or crimped metal fittings is the tell.

The Manatee County Property Appraiser lists each parcel's year built. A home from the poly-b years that has already been repiped will show copper or PEX at those points; a home that has not will show grey.

Polybutylene degrades from the inside as chlorine and chloramine in treated water react with the plastic; the pipe flakes and grows brittle, and the fittings — especially the early plastic ones — crack. Failures are sudden, not gradual: a pinhole one day, a burst the next, often inside a wall or under the slab where nothing shows until the damage is done. Nothing about the water in Manatee County makes it worse than elsewhere, but nothing makes it better, and the pipe here is now thirty to nearly fifty years old.

Repipe now if you have had one leak (the rest of the system is the same age), if you are remodelling and the walls are open, if your insurer has raised the question, or if you are selling — a buyer's inspector will find it. $3,500–$8,000 in PEX for a typical home, including the drywall patches, and it ends every future conversation.

Wait, with eyes open if the system has never leaked, the fittings are the later copper crimp type, and you are prepared to act at the first sign: a drop in pressure, a wet spot, a warm floor. Know where the main shutoff is and that it works. Waiting is a bet; it is a reasonable bet for some homeowners, and an expensive one when it loses in a closed-up seasonal home.

Insurance is the practical driver. Many carriers decline new policies on homes with poly-b or require replacement within a set period; ask yours before renewal rather than after a claim.