Plumbing system causing problems for homeowners

A plumbing system called Kitec is causing some problems for homeowners. The issue is with the pipes, which can leak and cause serious water damage if they aren’t replaced.

“Quite a few years ago, they migrated from copper plumbing to a plastic kind of plumbing called pex,” says home inspector Doug Wheatley. “There was a certain type that was manufactured that proved to have some problems.”

Thousands of homeowners across North America are experiencing problems due to the faulty pipes, including some in the Maritimes.

“There’s some leaking and failure of the pipe, sometimes at the fittings and sometimes with the piping itself,” says Wheatley.

Homeowners who had the pipes, branded under the name Kitec, installed between 1995 and 2006 may be at risk.

“The place to start looking is around your boiler where the feeds go out to the baseboards or the in-floor of the house,” says Wheatley.

Dimitri Papoulis owns a plumbing and heating company in Halifax. He says some homeowners are opting to replace the pipes as a precaution, even if they haven’t had any issues with their plumbing.

“We’ve been doing Kitec removal now, probably one a week for the last six months,” says Papoulis.

“There hasn’t been that many failures with it but again, there’s a cause for concern because the pipe can fail. The fittings can fail and then you can have flooding in your home.”

According to the Kitec website, a $125-million settlement fund was set up in 2011 as part of an out-of-court lawsuit to help people who have issues with the plumbing.

Claims can be filed by logging onto kitecsettlement.com. Homeowners with Kitec plumbing have until January 9, 2020 to be eligible for relief.

With files from CTV Atlantic's Alyse Hand