Anybody's house leaking:pokerface:

Can confirm, too poor to have those problems

My tent is holding up okay

they take 7% of the monthly rent, but since its a rental, its just another claim I can do during my taxes.

Been looking for a house and finally found something that we like, however we found out that it has poly b piping. Reading up on it, it sounds like there is serious risk of leaks. It has poly b for domestic (kitchen/bath) and for radiant floor heating. Different opinions, some say leave the radiant floor heating as it "shouldn't leak" and only change out the domestics pipes. Has anyone had experience replacing the pipes (domestic and/or floor heating). Trying to weight the cost and inconvenience of doing this.

^ Yes.

We have 37 fixtures in our house. Remove and replace, plus remediation (drywall replace and skim coating) was about 15K.

^ any issues with your home insurance company not covering a poly b house? Or damaged from it?

It will leak eventually.
Even if it doesn't, there no oxygen barrier on poly-b piping so all the ferrous piping/circulator(s) and the boiler will have rusting issues.

There are fewer choices with insurers these days. One of the major insurers, Wawanesa, stopped new business for poly-B homes just before we closed. Our house was a mid-90s build with copper fittings, but even so, it wasn't worth it in our view to take a chance. We had planned to renovate our house anyway, so we were fine with cutting up ceilings and walls.

When we renewed our insurance this year, our broker was able to get quotes from several insurers.

No issues insuring our townhouse with Poly B. In floor heating would make me a little more nervous, but honestly the stuff is fine if it’s not disturbed, which in-floor heat never would be.

We did a big Reno recently, kind of wish I had swapped it all out, especially since our custom kitchen cabinetry is going to make it way more of a pain in the arse to change now.

I thought poly b floor radiant heating is too costly to change since you would have to break the concrete floors. I heard people just install baseboard instead and not use the radiant heat if it leaks.

ya - if my parents' infloor radiant poly-b piped system failed, my intent would have been to decommission the system and go electric bb heat.

We had the same issue. We have a 2500 sq/ft home.

Our issue was that when we were getting insurance as we just moved in and they specifically asked about our plumbing. We told them we had poly B and our insurance went up $130 (edit; this was per month). Considering that, we decided to just get it replaced. No point in paying the premium.

We didn't have radiant floor heating, just hydronics for heating the house. Total was around $8,000, but we had other reno's we were doing as well, so i'm not sure what the cost would have been as we took down our ceiling, etc.

For radiant heating, that's a pretty big job as they'll have to break up the floor and concrete, etc.

Did you talk to your insurance?

im assuming your inspector told you that the house uses poly-b? If you really like the house, talk to your realtor. You can negotiate the price down further because you were told by inspector that the house has poly-b.

Assuming the premium stays the same, thats 61 years of insurance, not to go through house renos, "just to save 130$ a year"

8000$ today invested at 5% over 61 years is 150k...

Then again, the value of your house went up and increased the buyer pool should you sell

Sorry, it was $130 PER MONTH

Fuck that, yeah no brainer

thanks for the input guys! Yes, we talk to our insurance and they are able to find companies to insure us but yes, close to $100 extra/month. I'll probably have to get some quotes to understand how much to change the domestic piping.

As for the in floor radiant heating, electric baseboards is one way to go. I randomly called up a company and they suggested a heat pump, that way, you get heat in the winter and A/C in the summer.

electric baseboards burn a fuck ton of energy though...one of the highest for electric use


i'd do my best to stay from it.

^ can confirm, even modestly using them in my apartment a couple winters ago doubled my electricity bill

given the trend of our summers, a heat pump option isn't a bad idea either.

Hey RS,

When it comes to getting a mortgage...

My sister has a rental suite that is not authorized and she is not claiming it on her taxes.
Does it matter if she declares that income to her mortgage broker?

It's a super small studio that's pretty old and she's only getting $600 for it.

Do you think it'll make a big difference?

My thinking is she should just tell the broker so she can get a bigger qualification, it's not like CRA and the bank share that type of information.

What do you think she should do?

nah, $600 is nothing

is it paid off?
my mort. broker says when you properties with a mortgage, it is considered a risk and it actually affects getting a better mortgage.
Therefore, we are only using my gf's name to leverage a bigger mortgage.

600$ is 150k in buying power.