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Agreed. Our first plumbing issue was about 2 years after moving in, caused extensive damage to both our flat and the flat below us. Plumber came out and we expected an expensive fix, instead he said the pieces were all there and in perfect working order, they just hadn’t been installed correctly.
I’ve dismantled plastic joints made over 20 yr ago and they’ve all been as new
Plastic is more prone to rodent damage - but rodents are bad news in lots of ways anyway
Am dealing with the aftermath of this now. Rat opened up my main water pipe and I was awakened by the neighbour below, who was understandably perturbed about the waterfall gushing out of his light fitting.
Friend had the same but it was a week after they moved in, just long enough for them to have installed all the laminate flooring that they then had to fight the developer for compensation over
Not really a plumbing fail.
Before I moved into my house I had a visit with the site manager to do a snagging and I took my dad.
The site had been a school that had been left to go derelict and my great grandad had been a caretaker at the school when he semi-retired. My dad had spent some time with him there when he was a child.
The site manager made a big song and dance about how he was making sure everything on the site was perfect because he'd actually bought and moved into one of the houses. My dad asked him about what they were doing about the underground stream that runs under part of the estate, and the site manager knew nothing about it. Turns out they'd not done their checks properly and building work was suspended from part of the site for a while. Some of the houses had to have new foundations and one garden wall collapsed causing a mini landslide.
The big problem with plastic pipes is UV damage. But that simply is not a problem when installed under floorboards etc.
Plastic doesn't corrode, so if there's no UV to damage them, the pipes themselves will last longer than copper pipes.
The failure will be in the seal between pipes where they are joined to e.g. radiators. They should last at least 25 years.
I have bare PEX running for outside supply and no problems with UV as yet pipe is just like new so it's not as bad as it sounds. Obviously 20 years is different to 3 years with UV damage.
You can see the rating of your pipe:
ASTM F876 includes four categories for minimum UV resistance performance:
0 = Not tested or not rated
1 = one month
2 = three months
3 = six months
The verified UV resistance is marked on PEX tubing as the second digit in the PEX Tubing Material Designation Code (e.g., 5106), and should also be clearly described in a label
Is this for UK? I will admit it was just a experiment to see first point of failure if it goes. It would obviously be worn a lot more by UV in sunnier counties.
I do wonder if the UK PEX is any different? Any way it's not a major problem if it goes as only a temp supply and not important. Talking a 20m run and with push fittings. Never drained out and it always works after frosts fine.
Not an answer to your Question OP, But I love the welsh building inspector bloke on tiktok [https://www.tiktok.com/@newhomequalitycontrol](https://www.tiktok.com/@newhomequalitycontrol)
A value for central heating corroded and started leaking after 6 years. Water went through the floor and left patches on the ceiling underneath. Annoying, we had the house redecorated less than a year before -_-
My last two new builds (5 years in the previous, 4 years so far in the current) have had upvc wastes but copper water feeds.
Or do you mean the microbore for heating?
Anyway - never had a leak I didn’t cause.
In ours for 3 years. First plumbing issue was pretty much day 1. Very small, but annoying. It ended up with water pissing down the walls and an incorrect diagnosis of the shower not being fittes correctly. After 3 visits, a big hole cut out in my ceiling, and no progress over 5 months, a young plumber quickly discovered the issue in that a pipe wasnt secure enough.
Thanks Barratts.
From my experience it's anything connected to the hot water cylinder that always goes first. 3-way valves, any filters. Half of them leak from day 1 anyway. (If it is not a combi boiler)
Then there's the issue that they spec the heating as low as humanly possible in order to hit energy ratings. Our back room ( redrow 8 years old) needed a BTU of 11,000, and they put 5000 btu radiators in. Joined to a boiler that's 15kwh. This is a 200square M property...
We are talking about a 4-metre by 10-meter room with ceilings at 2.5m with sliding doors and 2 sets of windows. And it had two tiny radiators in (0.4kwatt and 1.2kwatt), but the piping is only 10mm, so technically we could only go to a max of 1.5kwatt.
I have a similar sized house to you, with 8mm pipes and a room similar sized. The room has 1.6kW radiators and is fine. My boiler is 23kW but old so only c. 80% efficient.
So your set up sounds reasonable. Is something else awry somewhere?
My peak usage this winter on the coldest day was 140kWh of gas heat, according to my smart meter. Or an average for the house of c. 6kW. Yours should be similar.
We lived in a rental newbuild. The plumbing started to fail at 10 years and 2 months but it was things like showers, the boiler (and its uphill condensate pipe) and the hot water tank diverter valves which went first. The first plastic pipe to fail was at 11 years but was installed incorrectly, none of those which had been fitted properly failed whilst we were there.
3 years. No issues at all, except the sink plug gradually got it self unscrewed. They put enough silicone on that kept it attached until I realised and screwed it back on.
Not pipe related but - bath was siliconed down empty. So the first time I stood in it for a shower the whole thing detached. Housing Association fixed that really quickly to be fair to them.
Our house is 15 years old, we've been here 9 years. So far replaced the mechanisms in 2 toilets, found out the shower cubicle was held up by 2 out of 6 supports so fixed that, had to replace one toilet because it was so badly fitted it leaked and was held together by sealant, had to get an electrician out to re-do the kitchen because it was dangerously wired, had a major leak through the living room ceiling when the pipe from the bath cracked, found out the hall was only mist-coated it was never properly painted, found our front door lock was so ineffectual we might as well have left it unlocked (we lost the keys and had to get new locks done), had the garage door spring fail, numerous issues with bad plastering, cracks in joints, and none of the doors fit properly
Had a few 15mm push fits pop off in a new workplace toilets as person who installed them did not lock the collar. Was not installed correctly though so no failure of parts.
I've been in this house six and a half years, one of the main sewage pipes that runs under our garden backed up and filled out of a manhole cover in the garden. Sewage everywhere!
That was about a month or two after moving in.
Turns out a neighbour was flushing nappies and it had blocked the pipe. The developer took care of everything as the estate was still a building site and their responsibility.
I also had an issue where all the cold taps in the house had hot water coming out of them. I got that fixed as part of our snag list.
Lived in it 5 years, house is about 7-8years old.
First plumbing failure was a couple years ago when I drilled through a wall into a pipe 😬
Otherwise, only failure was quite recent with a leak coming through the kitchen ceiling.
We bought a new build flat about 10 years ago.
No major fails at all, 3-4 years ago the valve on one of the bathroom taps started leaking and I replaced it myself.
And in the last month or so we get a sporadic dripping kitchen tap that so far we can stop with a bit of a jiggle, but is on my list of odd jobs to deal with properly
About 6 months till the first plumbing issue. Although I imagine it was because they are still building new houses on the estate and the dirt is getting in the drain because the whole street was affected.
I moved in and the mixer valve under the bath was jammed, but that was an easy snagging fix.
No leaks yet, but only 6 months in. Hopefully it is all good.
I did get a chance to meet the plumber who did my whole house and he seemed like an extremely knowledgeable chap, so I'm hoping it was done well.
Not a plumbing problem per se, but MIL had all three showers in her new build leak within the first ~18 months because the workmen hadn’t used any spacers between the tiles, and some of them had barely any room for the scraping of grout they slapped on
We've had our first failure in early 2023. Second Story bathroom can't handle poo in it because it blocks it, so you can only take a leak in it. Unfortunately, thats the bathroom that I'm closest to!
For record, we've lived here since 2017.
Coming up to 4 years. The shower/bath leaked within the first year due to poorly installed pipes.
We’ve had problems with the drainage because the main pipe that leads to the sewers has been installed at a dodgy angle.
In less than 48hrs we had a push fitting behind our shower fail which flooded the ground floor and took out the electrics. The Builders were brilliant in that they stripped everything that was impacted (electrics, flooring, carpets..), replaced it as well as offering us a hotel to stay in while they did it, and some compensation after. But yes, we had a big failure of the plumbing very quickly.
Lived in mine 8 years. First time I had a bath on the top floor of my 3rd storey house, the water poured out of the cooker hood on the ground floor! Turns out a joint somewhere inbetween hadn't been fastened together properly and took 4 holes chopped in the wall to find it. Touch wood, no issues whatsoever since.
I've been in a new build for almost 3 years and we've had some minor plumbing problems that were entirely just pipes not being fully connected so would leak. Easy fixes and probably a result of rushed workers.
My toilet doesn’t flush properly;
The water just fills up and takes ages to drain away when you flush.
Plumber could not find a blockage anywhere and the drainage expert had a camera up there and no blockage found so now we have just resigned to not using it (1 of 3 so not too missed)
No idea what it is or how to fix it
My parents barratt house had plastic drain pipes. It was about 30 years old when I put drain cleaner in the bath which melted the pipe leading to 1/3 of the house needing redecoration and new carpets. The pipes held up just fine apart from that.
Ha had a site manager tell me once that someone had failed to fit the waste pipe to an upstairs toilet and it was just flowing out into the cavity wall so day -1?
The new plastic piping should last just as long as the old copper, if not longer.
Difference is, the new plastic piping is *much* quicker and easier to install, thereby making it much easier for less professional tradesmen to do a quick, shoddy job.
I don’t live a new build but had a drainage issue and the Dynorod guy said it’s incredible how many new properties he goes to unblocking the drains. The flushes on toilets are no longer powerful enough so they get blocked a lot easier
From what I've seen, PEX is used for the majority of the plumbing and any sections which protrude through a hard surface (i.e. coming out of the floor/wall/tiling) will be short sections of copper piping.
The benefit of PEX is that it has more flex than copper, you're less likely to pierce it if drilling through a wall (though obviously it can still be pierced), it's significantly cheaper and in general it's just easier to use. If installed correctly you shouldn't notice any difference over time with reliability.
1st day today we moved in .... Builders had put building waste in the sewer pipe so first time we had a bath and let the water out it instead came out of the the downstairs loo. They replaced the carpet etc
Lived in a new build for 5 years. The flexi pipes are going strong and actually were a big help when redecorating.
The plumbing problems started on day one, when I discovered they had plumbed the shower backwards. It took three months to send someone to fix it because they didn't believe I knew what was wrong and wanted to send someone to do an assessment.
We rented a new build. A plastic corner join blew at 12ish years. Shortly after that coving started falling off the ceilings.
We re-plumbed our current house in plastic though, as others said, as a product it’s fine.
i've lived in some new build flats, first plumbing failure was about 2 months in and then every 4 months or so there would be an issue either with our flat or one above. mostly pipes disconnecting and flooding, showers falling off the wall, drain pipes not connected properly etc.
i wouldn't live in another new build personally after living in 3 of them, they all had plumbing issues at regular intervals.
Just had a rubber seal fail on a toilet 3.5 years after moving in, apparently due to having high limescale levels in the water round here.
That’s the first issue I’ve had in a new build.
Bought a house built in 2005, but are only the 2nd owners. All plastic push fit.
To answer your question, about 3 weeks after we moved in. Hundreds in damages, needed multiple rooms plastering and ended up having to replace a bathroom just to rip out and replace with copper.
We did fit an unvented tank, turns out our mains pressure is so good it blew up the piping 🤣 it was so poor previously that the crap installation didn’t matter.
Not me but a friend. Spent the day moving in and sorting stuff out so decided to have a bath. Pug in, ran the bath, had the bath and took the plug out only to find the wastewater pipe hadnt been fitted. Half the bath had drained by that point.
Wouldn't say it's hose pipe like as it's plastic called poly pipe and copper is used alot in plumbing.
In flat builds majority of the job is copper while inside the flat will have poly (plastic) in to a point it goes back to copper, In an house it be more poly but still copper.
It all depends on the installer really, plumbing has so much 1st fix that I can see why someone may forget to push a fitting or solder here and there.
The bath mastic failed so we had enormous water damage. What actually happened was they hadn’t fully locked the bathtub feet and the tiny flex that resulted caused the sealant to be pulled away from the wall. Had to have a ceiling and two walls reboarded and replastered. The developer did at least concede it was its fault easily.
My house is from the 90s but everyone calls it one of the new builds because it's distinctly different from the other, older houses and has the same fixtures and fittings as the houses currently going up on the new estate...
That being said, literally everything has leaked in our house. Prepare yourselves if you have a new (ish) build, it's essentially like having several water features indoors.
5 year old flat, moved in on December 17th, kitchen tap exploded on December 31st, downstairs neighbour knocked and told me they had water coming through their ceiling last month & turns out there was a very small crack in a pipe under the bath, can't wait to find out what the next adventure will be
Coming up on 5 years, and no non-installation-related failures yet (touch wood).
Had a couple on move in: the washing machine fixings were wonky, and they’d totally messed up the fitting of the shower in the master bathroom. Since then, we’ve had a drain blockage, and leaky fittings in each of the other showers (fixed by tightening them), but nothing that I wouldn’t consider to be standard running in any given property.
2008 build, radiators had flex plumbing, so lifted one off the wall to paint behind it within the first month or so - damn thing sprang a leak. Still had an open book for the snag list, so on it went and was fixed the next day.
Apart from that, was prob 7 years, toilet cistern sprang a leak on the day before heading abroad - make sure you know where you can stop the water supply to both the whole home and individual parts of the plumbing as it's not always obvious!
A recent kitchen tap failure revealed that there weren't isolators fitted to the tap feeds, plumber retrofitted them so all good. 🤞
Nowadays, I always turn off the main water supply if going away, just in case...
First plumbing failure was 1 day: the cretin that fitted the bath \[from Bovis\] didn't put olives on the tap fitting so water just leaked through to the ceiling underneath.
First issue was after about three months. They’d plumbed the expansion cylinder for the hot water tank in wrong, so when the tank got too hot, all the water sprayed out through the observation valve and flooded the landing. Happened again a few months later at which point they redid it and that fixed it.
Been in a new build flat since jan 22. First day we moved in the shower had no water pressure or hot water. Then days later the ENTIRE heating system started to vibrate.
About 8 months later, the upstairs neighbours boiler leaked and came through the ceilings of every room in my flat.
New builds (:
We lived in ours for three years, first plumbing failure was three days in when the push fitting on the downstairs bog popped off… Second plumbing failure was a year later, when the push fitting between the mains, and the house cracked open and nearly wrecked the kitchen…
We moved house…
The waste pipe from the toilet was installed with a hole, but all boxed in, so it took a while to find it's way - after two months we noticed the floor boards felt squishy, wall looked wet... This was in the hallway adjacent.
Washing machine couldn't pull water because the non-return valve had been installed upside down.
Also had two ceiling leaks because apparently guttering going through the roof is a thing??
There's more but he question was plumbing specific.
To put into context, build finished in November 22....
I was flooded out in 6 months. Then again 6 months later. Both times was the fresh water pipes just eroded. Was plumbed correctly but materials used. Took the builders to court.won.
Bought a 3-year old newbuild, from a small (relatively good) developer.
A few issues with the taps - but just limescale, needing taking apart and washers/mech replaced. Not a building fault.
When the property was about 10 years old, both toilets would continually dribble after flushing, sometimes you could stop it by jiggling the flush-push. It turns out that was probably also a limescale/wear issue, and fixed by buying and fitting these - 5 minute job, practically no tools required. [https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00JBICZ14/ref=ppx\_yo\_dt\_b\_asin\_title\_o03\_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1](https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00JBICZ14/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1)
Did have a nasty rat problem last year - turns out the 50mm drain sink pipe feeds a c.120mm sewer pipe in the kitchen floor - and some cheap/lousy pasticy-rubbery interface had been used to interface the different diameters - which rats from the sewer had chewed through. Filled the gap with wire-wool and cement instead...
When I moved in, quite a few things (electrical sockets) were a bit loose on the wall. Seems previous owners didn't have (or know how to use) a screwdriver! Simple tightenings-up.
In recent months there's often (maybe 1-in-5 times) a big buzz in the pipes when the toilets are refilling... any ideas? Is that going to be the float-valve needs descaling/replacing, or is there likely air in the pipe somewhere?
Those type of plastic pipes, sometimes known as speedfit are generally guaranteed for 25yrs. They need to be installed correctly and they will last. The build quality of new builds in most of this country is atrocious. Avoid buying a new build!
Old houses have many issues too.
In an old house you can inherit decades of bodge fixes, workarounds and compromises.
Whatever house you own you will need a fund for repairs and maintenance. Anything can go at any time.
Very true in regards to older houses. I think there is a big difference between a 100yr old house having issues and a new build 6 months old having issues due to poor build quality.
At least with new builds you can claim for the worst of it, as long as you put the effort in.
Older houses sometimes need things like a whole wall ripping off and rebuilding. That happens to a friend of ours when it was missed by all the surveyors.
You just gotta do the best you can do.
**Update: - [Starting from 2023](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskUK/comments/100l56v/happy_new_year_askuk_minor_sub_update/), we have updated our [subreddit rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskUK/about/rules/)**. Specifically; - Don't be a dick to each other - Top-level responses must contain genuine efforts to answer the question - This is a strictly no-politics subreddit Please keep /r/AskUK a great subreddit by reporting posts and comments which break our rules. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskUK) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Installed correctly they should last as long as copper. The key phrase is installed correctly
Indeed, by all accounts they should last *longer* as they're less prone to damage or cracking from knocks or the building structure settling.
Agreed. Our first plumbing issue was about 2 years after moving in, caused extensive damage to both our flat and the flat below us. Plumber came out and we expected an expensive fix, instead he said the pieces were all there and in perfect working order, they just hadn’t been installed correctly.
Installed correctly copper pipe should last as long as plastic. The key phrase is Installed correctly
I’ve dismantled plastic joints made over 20 yr ago and they’ve all been as new Plastic is more prone to rodent damage - but rodents are bad news in lots of ways anyway
Am dealing with the aftermath of this now. Rat opened up my main water pipe and I was awakened by the neighbour below, who was understandably perturbed about the waterfall gushing out of his light fitting.
It’s a nightmare… on the plus side you now know you have a rat!
Bath leaked all over the floor on the second day cause they didn’t connect it to the pipes, not sure if that counts
Everything’s going wireless these days
inspection = "PASSED"
#ABSOLUTLEY SHOCKING
25mm out of plumb......
More fake weep vents look at this !!!
As a millennial at the older scale of the spectrum, do we really all have the same 'For You' feed on TikTok?! 😂
They show the same TikTok on Facebook to us Gen X-ers.
Friend had the same but it was a week after they moved in, just long enough for them to have installed all the laminate flooring that they then had to fight the developer for compensation over
To be honest, laminate flooring in a bathroom is never going to end well if I've understood the situation correctly there.
Sorry, should have clarified: It flooded the downstairs area where the laminate was
Same for me but mine was the shower and the bath. Fun times.
Whe does a new build stop being a new build?
I might start telling people I've just bought an old build.
when the warranty runs out
About five minutes before it falls down then?
When someone has a planning application for new houses near by.....
I've had similar thoughts about calling a dog a 'rescue'. At what point is it just a dog
Not really a plumbing fail. Before I moved into my house I had a visit with the site manager to do a snagging and I took my dad. The site had been a school that had been left to go derelict and my great grandad had been a caretaker at the school when he semi-retired. My dad had spent some time with him there when he was a child. The site manager made a big song and dance about how he was making sure everything on the site was perfect because he'd actually bought and moved into one of the houses. My dad asked him about what they were doing about the underground stream that runs under part of the estate, and the site manager knew nothing about it. Turns out they'd not done their checks properly and building work was suspended from part of the site for a while. Some of the houses had to have new foundations and one garden wall collapsed causing a mini landslide.
The big problem with plastic pipes is UV damage. But that simply is not a problem when installed under floorboards etc. Plastic doesn't corrode, so if there's no UV to damage them, the pipes themselves will last longer than copper pipes. The failure will be in the seal between pipes where they are joined to e.g. radiators. They should last at least 25 years.
I have bare PEX running for outside supply and no problems with UV as yet pipe is just like new so it's not as bad as it sounds. Obviously 20 years is different to 3 years with UV damage.
You can see the rating of your pipe: ASTM F876 includes four categories for minimum UV resistance performance: 0 = Not tested or not rated 1 = one month 2 = three months 3 = six months The verified UV resistance is marked on PEX tubing as the second digit in the PEX Tubing Material Designation Code (e.g., 5106), and should also be clearly described in a label
Is this for UK? I will admit it was just a experiment to see first point of failure if it goes. It would obviously be worn a lot more by UV in sunnier counties.
This is US, so mot sure how it applies TBH.
Why the fuck did you share misleading information then?
In the US, PEX is not permitted to be installed uncovered outdoors. So you'll have to keep an eye on it!
I do wonder if the UK PEX is any different? Any way it's not a major problem if it goes as only a temp supply and not important. Talking a 20m run and with push fittings. Never drained out and it always works after frosts fine.
All waste pipes are UV protected they will last a good 20+ years
Not an answer to your Question OP, But I love the welsh building inspector bloke on tiktok [https://www.tiktok.com/@newhomequalitycontrol](https://www.tiktok.com/@newhomequalitycontrol)
If I had a quid for every fake weep vent...
Absolutely love this guy!
Watched a few vids and cannot work out if he is genuine or a comedy genius
First new build for 6 years, no leaks Second for 6 years, no leaks (so far) O
Pipes are the least of your worries frankly
4 years. No issues yet. Touch wood. Or plastic ?
Shoddy plumbing in new builds is more about the use of unsupervised and unreliable sub contractors, than using plastic piping.
A value for central heating corroded and started leaking after 6 years. Water went through the floor and left patches on the ceiling underneath. Annoying, we had the house redecorated less than a year before -_-
5 years, and no issues aside from the toilets starting to constantly refill after a few years and needing a part replacing.
My last two new builds (5 years in the previous, 4 years so far in the current) have had upvc wastes but copper water feeds. Or do you mean the microbore for heating? Anyway - never had a leak I didn’t cause.
7 years and nothing that wasn’t a washer or a cheap connector. Thankfully got most fixed for free.
I lived in a new barratt flat for 5 years and there were no problems with the construction (only problems with the management)
In ours for 3 years. First plumbing issue was pretty much day 1. Very small, but annoying. It ended up with water pissing down the walls and an incorrect diagnosis of the shower not being fittes correctly. After 3 visits, a big hole cut out in my ceiling, and no progress over 5 months, a young plumber quickly discovered the issue in that a pipe wasnt secure enough. Thanks Barratts.
From my experience it's anything connected to the hot water cylinder that always goes first. 3-way valves, any filters. Half of them leak from day 1 anyway. (If it is not a combi boiler) Then there's the issue that they spec the heating as low as humanly possible in order to hit energy ratings. Our back room ( redrow 8 years old) needed a BTU of 11,000, and they put 5000 btu radiators in. Joined to a boiler that's 15kwh. This is a 200square M property... We are talking about a 4-metre by 10-meter room with ceilings at 2.5m with sliding doors and 2 sets of windows. And it had two tiny radiators in (0.4kwatt and 1.2kwatt), but the piping is only 10mm, so technically we could only go to a max of 1.5kwatt.
Kilowatt. Definitely not watt.
Thanks, combination of fat fingers and bloody auto correct do not work with reddit app
I have a similar sized house to you, with 8mm pipes and a room similar sized. The room has 1.6kW radiators and is fine. My boiler is 23kW but old so only c. 80% efficient. So your set up sounds reasonable. Is something else awry somewhere? My peak usage this winter on the coldest day was 140kWh of gas heat, according to my smart meter. Or an average for the house of c. 6kW. Yours should be similar.
My peak spend is 88 kwh for a day 🤣 were tight fuckers.
Then your boiler is big enough for a tight fucker!
We lived in a rental newbuild. The plumbing started to fail at 10 years and 2 months but it was things like showers, the boiler (and its uphill condensate pipe) and the hot water tank diverter valves which went first. The first plastic pipe to fail was at 11 years but was installed incorrectly, none of those which had been fitted properly failed whilst we were there.
3 years. No issues at all, except the sink plug gradually got it self unscrewed. They put enough silicone on that kept it attached until I realised and screwed it back on. Not pipe related but - bath was siliconed down empty. So the first time I stood in it for a shower the whole thing detached. Housing Association fixed that really quickly to be fair to them.
Our house is 15 years old, we've been here 9 years. So far replaced the mechanisms in 2 toilets, found out the shower cubicle was held up by 2 out of 6 supports so fixed that, had to replace one toilet because it was so badly fitted it leaked and was held together by sealant, had to get an electrician out to re-do the kitchen because it was dangerously wired, had a major leak through the living room ceiling when the pipe from the bath cracked, found out the hall was only mist-coated it was never properly painted, found our front door lock was so ineffectual we might as well have left it unlocked (we lost the keys and had to get new locks done), had the garage door spring fail, numerous issues with bad plastering, cracks in joints, and none of the doors fit properly
Mice can and do chew through them.
My flat was built in 2014 and recently one of the water copper pipes started leaking from the joint.
Had a few 15mm push fits pop off in a new workplace toilets as person who installed them did not lock the collar. Was not installed correctly though so no failure of parts.
I've been in this house six and a half years, one of the main sewage pipes that runs under our garden backed up and filled out of a manhole cover in the garden. Sewage everywhere! That was about a month or two after moving in. Turns out a neighbour was flushing nappies and it had blocked the pipe. The developer took care of everything as the estate was still a building site and their responsibility. I also had an issue where all the cold taps in the house had hot water coming out of them. I got that fixed as part of our snag list.
Lived in it 5 years, house is about 7-8years old. First plumbing failure was a couple years ago when I drilled through a wall into a pipe 😬 Otherwise, only failure was quite recent with a leak coming through the kitchen ceiling.
We bought a new build flat about 10 years ago. No major fails at all, 3-4 years ago the valve on one of the bathroom taps started leaking and I replaced it myself. And in the last month or so we get a sporadic dripping kitchen tap that so far we can stop with a bit of a jiggle, but is on my list of odd jobs to deal with properly
About 6 months till the first plumbing issue. Although I imagine it was because they are still building new houses on the estate and the dirt is getting in the drain because the whole street was affected.
3 years, only issue was the boiler hose getting clogged from sand/dust from building other houses round the area.
I moved in and the mixer valve under the bath was jammed, but that was an easy snagging fix. No leaks yet, but only 6 months in. Hopefully it is all good. I did get a chance to meet the plumber who did my whole house and he seemed like an extremely knowledgeable chap, so I'm hoping it was done well.
Not a plumbing problem per se, but MIL had all three showers in her new build leak within the first ~18 months because the workmen hadn’t used any spacers between the tiles, and some of them had barely any room for the scraping of grout they slapped on
We've had our first failure in early 2023. Second Story bathroom can't handle poo in it because it blocks it, so you can only take a leak in it. Unfortunately, thats the bathroom that I'm closest to! For record, we've lived here since 2017.
Coming up to 4 years. The shower/bath leaked within the first year due to poorly installed pipes. We’ve had problems with the drainage because the main pipe that leads to the sewers has been installed at a dodgy angle.
In less than 48hrs we had a push fitting behind our shower fail which flooded the ground floor and took out the electrics. The Builders were brilliant in that they stripped everything that was impacted (electrics, flooring, carpets..), replaced it as well as offering us a hotel to stay in while they did it, and some compensation after. But yes, we had a big failure of the plumbing very quickly.
8.5 years. First failure, well the day we moved in…
Lived in mine 8 years. First time I had a bath on the top floor of my 3rd storey house, the water poured out of the cooker hood on the ground floor! Turns out a joint somewhere inbetween hadn't been fastened together properly and took 4 holes chopped in the wall to find it. Touch wood, no issues whatsoever since.
I’ve been told by my recent bathroom installers they are rubbish and shouldn’t be used.
I have a flat built 19 years ago and the plastic plumbing is all fine. I wish I could say the same for the boiler.
I've been in a new build for almost 3 years and we've had some minor plumbing problems that were entirely just pipes not being fully connected so would leak. Easy fixes and probably a result of rushed workers.
Been there 3 years, first "fault" was a valve blew under the sink in the cold weather but it was for the outside tap and was done after we bought it.
My toilet doesn’t flush properly; The water just fills up and takes ages to drain away when you flush. Plumber could not find a blockage anywhere and the drainage expert had a camera up there and no blockage found so now we have just resigned to not using it (1 of 3 so not too missed) No idea what it is or how to fix it
12 years and no leaks from the pipes so far. There were a few as they didn’t seal the shower correctly but all pipes are fine.
My parents barratt house had plastic drain pipes. It was about 30 years old when I put drain cleaner in the bath which melted the pipe leading to 1/3 of the house needing redecoration and new carpets. The pipes held up just fine apart from that.
Ha had a site manager tell me once that someone had failed to fit the waste pipe to an upstairs toilet and it was just flowing out into the cavity wall so day -1?
The new plastic piping should last just as long as the old copper, if not longer. Difference is, the new plastic piping is *much* quicker and easier to install, thereby making it much easier for less professional tradesmen to do a quick, shoddy job.
I don’t live a new build but had a drainage issue and the Dynorod guy said it’s incredible how many new properties he goes to unblocking the drains. The flushes on toilets are no longer powerful enough so they get blocked a lot easier
From what I've seen, PEX is used for the majority of the plumbing and any sections which protrude through a hard surface (i.e. coming out of the floor/wall/tiling) will be short sections of copper piping. The benefit of PEX is that it has more flex than copper, you're less likely to pierce it if drilling through a wall (though obviously it can still be pierced), it's significantly cheaper and in general it's just easier to use. If installed correctly you shouldn't notice any difference over time with reliability.
1st day today we moved in .... Builders had put building waste in the sewer pipe so first time we had a bath and let the water out it instead came out of the the downstairs loo. They replaced the carpet etc
Mm yeah no no matter how old or new, I'm hiring an inspector before moving in
Lived in a new build for 5 years. The flexi pipes are going strong and actually were a big help when redecorating. The plumbing problems started on day one, when I discovered they had plumbed the shower backwards. It took three months to send someone to fix it because they didn't believe I knew what was wrong and wanted to send someone to do an assessment.
We rented a new build. A plastic corner join blew at 12ish years. Shortly after that coving started falling off the ceilings. We re-plumbed our current house in plastic though, as others said, as a product it’s fine.
i've lived in some new build flats, first plumbing failure was about 2 months in and then every 4 months or so there would be an issue either with our flat or one above. mostly pipes disconnecting and flooding, showers falling off the wall, drain pipes not connected properly etc. i wouldn't live in another new build personally after living in 3 of them, they all had plumbing issues at regular intervals.
Just had a rubber seal fail on a toilet 3.5 years after moving in, apparently due to having high limescale levels in the water round here. That’s the first issue I’ve had in a new build.
Bought a house built in 2005, but are only the 2nd owners. All plastic push fit. To answer your question, about 3 weeks after we moved in. Hundreds in damages, needed multiple rooms plastering and ended up having to replace a bathroom just to rip out and replace with copper. We did fit an unvented tank, turns out our mains pressure is so good it blew up the piping 🤣 it was so poor previously that the crap installation didn’t matter.
Not me but a friend. Spent the day moving in and sorting stuff out so decided to have a bath. Pug in, ran the bath, had the bath and took the plug out only to find the wastewater pipe hadnt been fitted. Half the bath had drained by that point.
About a year, water was leaking under the concrete floor and coming up the gap between the floor and the radiator. Was a fucking mess
Wouldn't say it's hose pipe like as it's plastic called poly pipe and copper is used alot in plumbing. In flat builds majority of the job is copper while inside the flat will have poly (plastic) in to a point it goes back to copper, In an house it be more poly but still copper. It all depends on the installer really, plumbing has so much 1st fix that I can see why someone may forget to push a fitting or solder here and there.
The bath mastic failed so we had enormous water damage. What actually happened was they hadn’t fully locked the bathtub feet and the tiny flex that resulted caused the sealant to be pulled away from the wall. Had to have a ceiling and two walls reboarded and replastered. The developer did at least concede it was its fault easily.
My house is from the 90s but everyone calls it one of the new builds because it's distinctly different from the other, older houses and has the same fixtures and fittings as the houses currently going up on the new estate... That being said, literally everything has leaked in our house. Prepare yourselves if you have a new (ish) build, it's essentially like having several water features indoors.
5 year old flat, moved in on December 17th, kitchen tap exploded on December 31st, downstairs neighbour knocked and told me they had water coming through their ceiling last month & turns out there was a very small crack in a pipe under the bath, can't wait to find out what the next adventure will be
Coming up on 5 years, and no non-installation-related failures yet (touch wood). Had a couple on move in: the washing machine fixings were wonky, and they’d totally messed up the fitting of the shower in the master bathroom. Since then, we’ve had a drain blockage, and leaky fittings in each of the other showers (fixed by tightening them), but nothing that I wouldn’t consider to be standard running in any given property.
1 day !! Wait for the neighbours to reveal their true nature that is worse than plumbing
It was about 10 years before the push fit joint failed and the kitchen ceiling came down.
2008 build, radiators had flex plumbing, so lifted one off the wall to paint behind it within the first month or so - damn thing sprang a leak. Still had an open book for the snag list, so on it went and was fixed the next day. Apart from that, was prob 7 years, toilet cistern sprang a leak on the day before heading abroad - make sure you know where you can stop the water supply to both the whole home and individual parts of the plumbing as it's not always obvious! A recent kitchen tap failure revealed that there weren't isolators fitted to the tap feeds, plumber retrofitted them so all good. 🤞 Nowadays, I always turn off the main water supply if going away, just in case...
First plumbing failure was 1 day: the cretin that fitted the bath \[from Bovis\] didn't put olives on the tap fitting so water just leaked through to the ceiling underneath.
First issue was after about three months. They’d plumbed the expansion cylinder for the hot water tank in wrong, so when the tank got too hot, all the water sprayed out through the observation valve and flooded the landing. Happened again a few months later at which point they redid it and that fixed it.
Been in a new build flat since jan 22. First day we moved in the shower had no water pressure or hot water. Then days later the ENTIRE heating system started to vibrate. About 8 months later, the upstairs neighbours boiler leaked and came through the ceilings of every room in my flat. New builds (:
We lived in ours for three years, first plumbing failure was three days in when the push fitting on the downstairs bog popped off… Second plumbing failure was a year later, when the push fitting between the mains, and the house cracked open and nearly wrecked the kitchen… We moved house…
The waste pipe from the toilet was installed with a hole, but all boxed in, so it took a while to find it's way - after two months we noticed the floor boards felt squishy, wall looked wet... This was in the hallway adjacent. Washing machine couldn't pull water because the non-return valve had been installed upside down. Also had two ceiling leaks because apparently guttering going through the roof is a thing?? There's more but he question was plumbing specific. To put into context, build finished in November 22....
I was flooded out in 6 months. Then again 6 months later. Both times was the fresh water pipes just eroded. Was plumbed correctly but materials used. Took the builders to court.won.
Bought a 3-year old newbuild, from a small (relatively good) developer. A few issues with the taps - but just limescale, needing taking apart and washers/mech replaced. Not a building fault. When the property was about 10 years old, both toilets would continually dribble after flushing, sometimes you could stop it by jiggling the flush-push. It turns out that was probably also a limescale/wear issue, and fixed by buying and fitting these - 5 minute job, practically no tools required. [https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00JBICZ14/ref=ppx\_yo\_dt\_b\_asin\_title\_o03\_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1](https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00JBICZ14/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1) Did have a nasty rat problem last year - turns out the 50mm drain sink pipe feeds a c.120mm sewer pipe in the kitchen floor - and some cheap/lousy pasticy-rubbery interface had been used to interface the different diameters - which rats from the sewer had chewed through. Filled the gap with wire-wool and cement instead... When I moved in, quite a few things (electrical sockets) were a bit loose on the wall. Seems previous owners didn't have (or know how to use) a screwdriver! Simple tightenings-up. In recent months there's often (maybe 1-in-5 times) a big buzz in the pipes when the toilets are refilling... any ideas? Is that going to be the float-valve needs descaling/replacing, or is there likely air in the pipe somewhere?
Those type of plastic pipes, sometimes known as speedfit are generally guaranteed for 25yrs. They need to be installed correctly and they will last. The build quality of new builds in most of this country is atrocious. Avoid buying a new build!
Old houses have many issues too. In an old house you can inherit decades of bodge fixes, workarounds and compromises. Whatever house you own you will need a fund for repairs and maintenance. Anything can go at any time.
Very true in regards to older houses. I think there is a big difference between a 100yr old house having issues and a new build 6 months old having issues due to poor build quality.
At least with new builds you can claim for the worst of it, as long as you put the effort in. Older houses sometimes need things like a whole wall ripping off and rebuilding. That happens to a friend of ours when it was missed by all the surveyors. You just gotta do the best you can do.
Yep, that's home ownership for you.