Technology Changes the Way We Build and Remodel Our Homes

Newer products deliver reliability, convenience and cost savings

How times have changed. Remember when floor tile was installed one small square at a time? Now it’s done in sheets.

Or when shower walls were cemented in place one piece at a time? Now they’re installed as a single, complete unit.

Or when roofs were built stick by stick up high on site? Now trusses are assembled in a factory, transported by truck to the job and hoisted into place by cranes.

How about doors that were hung on the job? Now they’re delivered to the site already in their frames and just set in place.

Remember when hot and cold water piping was all copper, joined together by solder? That’s still being done in many places, but plumbing systems have also come of age. Today, plumbing installations are being accomplished with optimum performing materials and installation methods--all at a lower cost and in record time.

One innovation that has been making major inroads into modern home building and remodeling is the FlowGuard Gold CPVC (chlorinated polyvinyl chloride) plumbing system. Constructed of high-performance, reliable CPVC, which has a 50-year track record in the field, this state-of-the-art product requires no soldering or risky open flame during installation. It completely eliminates concerns over corrosion, pitting and scaling. It has also been proven to be four-times quieter than copper, virtually resistant to condensation, water hammer and vibration, and maintains water quality.

At the same time that the product advantages of CPVC plumbing are becoming more known, the benefits of traditional metallic systems are being questioned. Just like lead-based paint and asbestos-containing products once represented standards in the industry and have since been replaced by newer, safer products, so has copper plumbing recently come under fire and increased scrutiny--not only for its link to possible water contamination caused by metal leaching into the water, but also for its frequency of premature failure.

Pinhole leaks, corrosion and scaling, which can limit a copper system’s life and performance, have been the source of increased attention and negative publicity throughout the country. From the east coast where The Washington Post has provided ongoing coverage for more than two years on the chronic leaks in copper systems--onward west to Texas where The San Antonio Express-News has continued to cover the problem of premature failures--down south to Jacksonville, Florida, where copper plumbing has been banned all together. Even in the Midwest just outside Akron, Ohio, in the town of Wadsworth, concern over leaks and the high costs to repair and repipe have caused community officials to consider banning the corrosive material.

The fire risk posed by the installation of copper plumbing has also caused concern--especially in remodeling applications where there is more chance for drywall or wooden joists to catch on fire from the torch that is required to solder copper. A recent example of a catastrophic fire caused during the installation of copper pipe was in Middleburg Heights, Ohio, on August 11, 2002, when a contractor’s torch ignited a fire causing $150,000 in damages during a routine copper plumbing installation.