Facebook
Fark
Digg
Reddit
Stumble
Monday, Feb. 23, 2009 | 6:53 p.m.
Related stories
- Judge approves $90 million faulty plumbing settlement (2-2-2009)
- Pipe work begins in homes involved in Kitec lawsuit (1-22-2009)
- Judge releases 322 homeowners from class-action plumbing lawsuit (12-15-2008)
- Couple hopes company will take action against faulty pipes (12-4-2008)
- Del Webb to pay $27.2 million in faulty plumbing lawsuit (12-3-2008)
- Tentative settlement reached in defective plumbing lawsuit (10-24-2008)
- Kitec maker agrees to pay $90 million over pipes (9-6-2008)
- As justice’s wheels grind, frustration over failure-prone plumbing grows (3-23-2008)
Plumbing failures in Southern Nevada may be more universal than the problem of just one system.
Already in the midst of a lawsuit regarding the Kitec plumbing system, Pulte Homes and its subsidiary Del Webb are investigating potential problems with Wirsbo brass fittings in some of its Sun City Anthem communities.
The Wirsbo fittings were installed in the majority of homes built between October 2005 and February 2008 in the Desert Sky, Shadow Canyon and Black Mountain communities, according to a letter Pulte sent to homeowners.
Pulte is offering to replace the Wirsbo yellow brass fittings with Wirsbo red brass fittings.
Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc and comes in a variety of types based on its composition.
Yellow brass typically has about 30 percent zinc. When the yellow brass is exposed to Southern Nevada's mineral-rich hard water, the zinc is removed and builds up inside the pipes leading to blockages and breaks, according to court documents in the Kitec lawsuit. The process is called dezincification.
Red brass typically has 5 percent to 10 percent zinc and is being used to replace the yellow brass in valley homes built by Richmond American and Pulte.
Jacque Petrolakis, a spokeswoman for Pulte, said the company is awaiting test results and additional inspections before it decides on a replacement plan for the Wirsbo fittings.
"We're taking a very proactive step here but we have not had significant issues with these brass fittings," she said. "We want to conduct inspections to determine possible future, if there are any, dezincification issues with the product."
Pulte has had issues with Rehau brand yellow brass fittings also.
Wirsbo was founded in 1620 forging steel and weapons for the King of Sweden, according to the company's Web site. Wirsbo changed its name to Uponor in 2006 but still sells products under the former name. Uponor, Inc. is headquartered in Apple Valley, Minn.
Jeff Pope can be reached at 990-2688 or jeff.pope@hbcpub.com.
And there are people who want to take away homebuyers rights to sue and leave remedies of faulty of construction issues to the very people who caused the problem in the first place, those honorable,greedy,corrupt, contractors and sub contractors. Thanks Senator Hardy. Who got to you?
...and who installed their plumbing ?
Pex and these fittings are starting to cause problems in a lot of markets. On top of that, California has just accepted PEX into the state plumbing code. Maybe CPVC is a better option. Are there failures in this area related to CPVC?
Personally I think Putle/Del Webb is doing an awesome job in taking care of the problem. For those people that did not rush out and get an attorney, Pulte has done and continues to do an excellent job of replacing the fittings. For those in this latest list, Pulte has already taken steps to get all the houses scheduled for the refitting and juding from our last house, where you could not even tell they had been there, Pulte/Del Webb will do an awesome job. So to all the homeowners who sued...too bad because the rest of the homeowners get free repairs and a great one at that.
Babyboomer ~ It is not really a "who", the reason it is so wide spread across the valley is because Kitec and Wirsbo were the most common brass fittings and it was installed by most plumbers.
Homer ~ It is the people that did not sue that got the quick repairs. As soon as some honorable, greedy attorneys got their hands on some homeowners, Pulte/Del Webb was restricted from making the free repairs to those homes. Everyone else has had the homes already fixed and returned to new condition at no cost at all.
Wake up people. This carrosion issue first started with copper just a few short years ago. Copper piping has been around a long time and untill recently has had very few random issues then all of a sudden bam, pipes are carroding in every single house in the valley (more precisly, the homes built around underground and direct bury power cables). So an alternate piping system, polybutylene came along. excuse my spelling as my wife/dictionary isnt around.
It also failed (oxidised by the amount of clorine use in our water), then Pex, Kitech, Rehou, Wirsbo and of course copper was used again (the copper industry refuses any type of warranty citing our water and soil conditions) all of which failed coincedenly on the hot side.
So two things are apparent, one, the water here is so agresive that any home owner should expect to have to replace their plumbing about as often as their water heater or air conditioner, both of which we dont blame any body for having to replace, we just do it. Two, have the water district clean up our water rather than replacing everybodys plumbing forever. Im glad im on a well. So instead of blaming our builders, who can we talk with at the water district to get the water condition changed or find out if the water heaters are the root cause. It is so tragic to have people put out of business for something so obvious being overlooked and the core carrosion problem goes on unadentified. Or wait for the next plumbing product to fail (the red brass fittings might last a couple of years longer).
VegasResident - still working for Pulte-Del Webb?