Michael B.
New Member
Hello y'all,
Hoping some of you generous experts can help me double check my thinking on a planned DIY plumbing job. Forgive my wordiness.
I was under my house (two story Colonial near Richmond, VA) recently, checking out my plumbing in advance of a greenhouse build and discovered to my dismay that my main supply coming from the street connection/meter is a long line of flexible blue Qest polybutylene. Since my house is now pushing 40 years old, this has me concerned. We had a copper wall pipe near an exterior spigot burst last winter (while we were home, thankfully) and it wasn't fun to fix or clean up. Can't imagine the cost and headache if my whole crawlspace floods when we're not at home...
Estimates to replace the supply line are in the multiple thousands and we just don't have that right now. First guy I called said to forget it and wait until it fails. Not loving that logic, but maybe I'm being too cautious?
So, anyway, I'm hoping to kill two birds and save a ton of money by digging the trench myself and replacing the supply line and running pipe to my greenhouse at the same time. The existing piping is pretty odd -- it runs from street supply all the way to the back of my house, under my den, connects to copper and then runs back to middle of house for various bathroom/kitchen runs. Best guess is the original plumber thought supply would come from the back, before development was finished. Who knows?
Planning to take advantage of this by using that section of copper to get me halfway to the greenhouse once I connect supply line in a more sensible spot, but being an complete amateur I would love some oversight from the pros. Please see below for proposed before and after. Bountiful thanks for any and all advice offered.
Hoping some of you generous experts can help me double check my thinking on a planned DIY plumbing job. Forgive my wordiness.
I was under my house (two story Colonial near Richmond, VA) recently, checking out my plumbing in advance of a greenhouse build and discovered to my dismay that my main supply coming from the street connection/meter is a long line of flexible blue Qest polybutylene. Since my house is now pushing 40 years old, this has me concerned. We had a copper wall pipe near an exterior spigot burst last winter (while we were home, thankfully) and it wasn't fun to fix or clean up. Can't imagine the cost and headache if my whole crawlspace floods when we're not at home...
Estimates to replace the supply line are in the multiple thousands and we just don't have that right now. First guy I called said to forget it and wait until it fails. Not loving that logic, but maybe I'm being too cautious?
So, anyway, I'm hoping to kill two birds and save a ton of money by digging the trench myself and replacing the supply line and running pipe to my greenhouse at the same time. The existing piping is pretty odd -- it runs from street supply all the way to the back of my house, under my den, connects to copper and then runs back to middle of house for various bathroom/kitchen runs. Best guess is the original plumber thought supply would come from the back, before development was finished. Who knows?
Planning to take advantage of this by using that section of copper to get me halfway to the greenhouse once I connect supply line in a more sensible spot, but being an complete amateur I would love some oversight from the pros. Please see below for proposed before and after. Bountiful thanks for any and all advice offered.
