What do you need to know about re-piping an HOA building? | Ep. 3

Matt Davidson, executive vice president, and John Ramirez, regional manager – engineering services, give a summary of what should be considered if a building must be re-piped—and how to know if that is what is needed.

Read Transcript [00:00:25.410] – Matthew Holbrook

Welcome to The Uncommon Area, where we apply an uncommon perspective to better understand what you need to know to operate an HOA. Today, our question is, what do we need to know about re-piping? To help with that, I’m joined by a couple of people here from Action Property Management: Matt Davidson, our Executive Vice President; and John Ramirez, our Regional Manager for Engineering. Just want to thank you both for being a part of this.

[00:00:57.720] – Matthew Holbrook

I guess just to kick things off, John, I think it’d be helpful if you could just give us a quick explanation. When we talk about re-piping in an HOA, what are we talking about? What does that even mean?

[00:01:10.080] – John Ramirez

Basically, going into the walls and getting into all the cast iron piping, meaning all the vertical lines for the kitchen sinks, drain lines for the bathroom sinks, and drain lines for the bathroom tubs. That also entails opening up a lot of walls.

[00:01:28.650] – Matthew Holbrook

You say that it’s getting into the walls with respect to cast iron piping. When we’re talking about re-piping, we’re talking about literally removing pipes from the walls and putting in new pipes?

[00:01:41.270] – John Ramirez

That’s correct. Basically, you’re going to take the old and put brand new. There’s two different pipes. There’s cast iron pipe and there’s copper pipe. Depending on what you’re doing can entail a whole different scope of work.

[00:01:53.530] – Matthew Holbrook

But when we just use the phrase re-piping, just to be clear, we’re talking about taking pipes out of the walls, putting in new pipes with respect to plumbing in an HOA building.

[00:02:07.960] – John Ramirez

That’s correct, yes.

[00:02:08.920] – Matthew Holbrook

All right. Then maybe just to set the stage, Matt, you’ve been in this business for a while. You have some experience or background in buildings and associations that actually have done re-piping. Maybe you can speak a little bit to just what your experience has been in this.

[00:02:28.410] – Matt Davidson

Well, yeah, my experience actually is more limited when it comes to re-piping because of how complicated it can be. I have a lot more experience with trying to figure out ways to save the piping that’s already there and prolong the life of it.

[00:02:45.610] – Matthew Holbrook

John has already just started off painting a really dire picture right out the gates that we’re talking about opening up walls, and taking out all the pipes that are in the walls, and replacing them all. We’ll talk about what that actually looks like in a minute. But, John, what’s your experience in actually going through and dealing with re-piping issues?

[00:03:03.160] – John Ramirez

Basically, I’ve been part of multiple retrofits, cast iron and copper. We’ve been with a lot of properties that are aging within time. I’ve been involved with different developers, different third-party vendors on changing them out and getting replaced.

[00:03:21.730] – Matthew Holbrook

It does sound like this is not the main choice or this is not something that a board of directors of an HOA would say, “Hey, let’s just go re-pipe. We’re excited about doing that.” Why don’t we start off with talking about what do we do to avoid getting into that situation?

[00:03:41.010] – Matthew Holbrook

Matt, maybe you can start off with that. What are things that a manager or a board member really needs to keep in mind with respect to maintaining their building to not put themselves in a position, where someday they’re going to have to re-pipe or to delay that even?

[00:03:59.390] – Matt Davidson

I would say two of the most important things that you can do to prolong the life of the piping that you have is on the domestic water side, so just your hot and cold drinking water. If you’re having pinhole leaks, then look into corrosion control, like phosphate injection into the water, which can help preserve the integrity of the water pipes.

[00:04:24.760] – Matthew Holbrook

Let me stop you right there. I’m a manager. I’ve never even heard the words that you just said. Who do I ask about that? What kind of a vendor would I go to?

[00:04:34.800] – Matt Davidson

There actually are a lot of companies that specialize in water treatment. This is really common in big high-rise buildings, especially in the hospitality space in hotels.

[00:04:46.820] – Matthew Holbrook

This would apply also in your garden-style condominium building as well?

[00:04:51.910] – Matt Davidson

It probably would. You have the most frequent issues when you have recirculating hot water. It’s easiest to do something like that if there’s one main water source. If every single unit has its own water supply, it wouldn’t apply to you. But in any other situation where you have shared water, and especially recirculating water, it probably works.

[00:05:14.430] – Matthew Holbrook

Let’s come back to that as to what the question is, what do we do in a situation where every unit has its own water supply. But in this scenario, John, would you have anything to add to what Matt was just saying?

[00:05:26.430] – John Ramirez

No, I think that’s one of the biggest problems, especially with the hot water circulating. It causes a lot of pinhole leaks. The water we have right now in many different regions, it’s really hard, and it really beats up the copper piping. Looking for a good water treatment system for the domestic hot water would be the way to go.

[00:05:45.180] – Matthew Holbrook

Is there anything that you should be doing if you do have individual water for each unit?

[00:05:51.730] – John Ramirez

Not much. They do have different systems, but when it comes to the garden-style, like homes and stuff like that, there’s really not much that you can do.

[00:06:00.520] – Matt Davidson

But you don’t tend to have the same aggressive deterioration of the lines either. Usually, your pipes are going to last quite a bit longer when you don’t have water constantly circulating through them.

[00:06:13.610] – Matthew Holbrook

Okay.

[00:06:15.430] – Matt Davidson

Oh, sorry.

[00:06:15.430] – Matthew Holbrook

Go ahead.

[00:06:16.100] – Matt Davidson

Just sort of going back to your question, then there’s the waste lines. The best thing you can do to preserve those is to clean them regularly.

[00:06:25.840] – Matthew Holbrook

What does cleaning look like?

[00:06:28.760] – John Ramirez

There’s a lot of different methods. Two of the biggest methods are snaking them. They actually get a plumber out there. Because these units don’t have cleanouts, it’s not a requirement. You actually have to go in through some kitchen sinks and open some P-traps to run a snake, which does work, but it doesn’t work completely.

[00:06:48.370] – John Ramirez

What we’ve been doing for the last few years is hydro jetting. Basically what a hydro jetter is basically a pressure washer. You basically stick this into a drain, get into the main line of the vertical stack, and then it flushes all out. We try to do this on a yearly basis. Especially right now, there’s a lot of residents and vendors in these units who use their car disposals as trash cans. They’re throwing in vegetable grounds or coffee grounds, which harm and build up in the pipes.

[00:07:22.280] – John Ramirez

We notice if we did this process on a yearly basis, it prevents a lot of backups in a lot of units, and it expands the lifespan of these pipes.

[00:07:32.100] – Matthew Holbrook

Now you mentioned that these units don’t have cleanouts. Some do, right?

[00:07:37.060] – John Ramirez

It’s really rare, but some do, yes.

[00:07:41.290] – Matthew Holbrook

Can you add cleanouts?

[00:07:43.030] – John Ramirez

You could. It’s a little difficult. Cleanouts have to be near a drain line, and sometimes these drain lines are in the walls either next to someone’s living room or it’s next to someone’s bathroom. A lot of residents don’t want to see a cleanout cap on the wall. Sometimes you get lucky, you could put them under their sinks, but depending on the layout of the plumbing, it varies.

[00:08:09.910] – Matthew Holbrook

Anything that you would add on that, Matt?

[00:08:12.540] – Matt Davidson

I was just going to ask John, in a garden-style scenario, if you have a few units and they’re sharing one main drain line that goes to the sewer, would you still recommend hydro jetting that mainline?

[00:08:24.880] – John Ramirez

Yes. There’s two ways of doing it. There’s a vertical riser. That’s where basically all the waste comes from the units. That would want to get cleaned at least once or twice a year. Now the main line is where all the debris falls before it goes into the street. The main lines, you would want to hydro jet at least once a year.

[00:08:42.470] – John Ramirez

Hydro jetting is the best way to clean out the main lines down in the garage.

[00:08:48.010] – Matthew Holbrook

Are there any other cleanout a...