[Rick Lee]

Paul, take it from someone who learned the VERY HARD WAY. Don't buy it, or make sure it's replaced before you close!!!!!!!!

I was 25 when I bought my first townhouse in 1996, which was built in 1984. I knew nothing and my home inspector and realtor were in cahoots with one another. House had polybutalene pipes. I had one small leaks in my ceiling, which I caught right when it happened, had a plumber come out, cut come drywall and replace the joint. $60, no biggie. Then I started reading up on this and got scared. I did not have the money to repipe the whole house. I filed a complaint with the ombudsman from the Shell class action settlement fund. They came out, took photos, looked around and said I had to have had two "occurances" within a certain time period, blah, blah. Bottom line was the deadline had passed. I was screwed. I got a guy from Pulte, the original builder, to come out. They said no dice. While I tried to decide how to come up with the money to fix this, I had a catastrophic burst.....while I was in Europe!!!!!

I got to Dulles Airport, turned my cell phone on and heard a frantic voicemail from a roommate. I got home and my house was a SWAMP!!!! A joint had let go in a downstairs bathroom around 3:00am. My roommate did not wake up until about 7:00am. By then, the downstairs was flooded. Luckily, all my guitars hang on walls like in a music store and my expensive amp was on caster wheels, so they didn't get wet. The damage was bad.

USAA ended up paying around $8k for the carpets and drywall and a few damaged belongings. This was a pittance compared to what some others have had happen. I could go on, but bottom line is polyb. is time bomb plumbing.

I paid about $4400 out of pocket to have some guys come in a replace it all with copper. They cut small holes in a few walls, pulled everything out, installed copper, patched and painted and I couldn't tell they had ever been there. Since my townhouse was small, this was not too expensive. In a real house, the repair won't be cheap and the damage can be ruinous.