PVC vs. Cast Iron Piping
I’m renovating a single family brownstone in Brooklyn. I’m redoing the entire plumbing system. Last year the DOB passed new regs which permit the use of PVC piping for single family residences. Can anyone please explain the pros and cons associated with using either PVC or cast iron? Any master plumbers out there? Thanks
I’m renovating a single family brownstone in Brooklyn. I’m redoing the entire plumbing system. Last year the DOB passed new regs which permit the use of PVC piping for single family residences. Can anyone please explain the pros and cons associated with using either PVC or cast iron? Any master plumbers out there?
Thanks
From Greenpeace:
Globally, over 50% of PVC manufactured is used in construction, in products such as pipelines, wiring, siding, flooring and wallpaper. As a building material PVC is cheap, easy to install and easy to replace. PVC is replacing ‘traditional’ building materials such as wood, concrete and clay in many areas. Although it appears to be the ideal building material, PVC has high environmental and human health costs that its manufacturers fail to tell consumers. From its manufacture to its disposal, PVC emits toxic compounds. During the manufacture of the building block ingredients of PVC (such as vinyl chloride monomer) dioxin and other persistent pollutants are emitted into the air, water and land, which present both acute and chronic health hazards. During use, PVC products can leach toxic additives, for example flooring can release softeners called phthalates. When PVC reaches the end of its useful life, it can be either landfilled, where it leaches toxic additives or incinerated, again emitting dioxin and heavy metals. When PVC burns in accidental fires, hydrogen chloride gas and dioxin are formed.
All that aside, let me go on record saying that there is “nothing wrong with PVC piping”, if that’s what you like.
Cast iron.
I find it easier to work with regardless of its weight. Even once it’s installed, you can loosen the couplings and move it as you need to to gain the right pitch. When PVC is installed, the glued fittings are set for good…much less forgiving than when working with cast iron.
It’s quieter, more stable and easier for retro fit applications.
Master Plumber,
what would you install in your own home – PVC or cast iron? taking all the pros and cons into consideration of course.
It was for the safety of the firemen themselves.
They were concerned about running into a building with burning PVC.
These days, however, our homes are filled with plastics of all kinds so it’s become less of an issue.
And before we go minimizing the merits of cast iron, consider that many of our 100-year old homes are still using the original cast iron piping installed at day one.
PVC has no such history.
Galvanized pipe was supposed to last forever, too.
Now it’s all but gone.
Also consider that PVC, while cheaper to buy, requires more support to keep it from sagging. Installation prices are not much different from cast iron.
anon 11:27 – The fire issue is cited but it seems fishy since the overwhelming vast majority of the country allows PVC. Most fires do not start in the wall, by the time a theoretical fire would get thru a wall and start burning the PVC and releasing the noxious fumes, a person still in the house would be dead of smoke inhallation and the PVC fumes would be the least of their problems.
I have no clue what you mean by speration of tenants though.
actually the reasons for not allowing pvc in other building types is fire protection and separation between tenats.
Cast iron is three times more expensive than PVC. On top of that it’s heavy, requires greater skill, and takes much longer to install. In the water distribution market PVC accounts for 66 percent of the market in the US, and in sanitary sewer pipe applications, it accounts for 75 percent. Though very prevalent in the suburbs, you typically find the use of PVC material permitted on a limited basis in big cities due to strong opposition from certain unions and special interest trade groups such as the Pipe Trades Political Action Committee in NY.
Plumbing in NYC is unnecessarily expensive. It’s comforting to see that the city is phasing in alternative piping materials into the our antiquated building codes. This will go a long way to lowering development and construction cost in the city and hopefully the price of housing.
If you are indeed renovating a single family home in Brooklyn then I would go with the PVC. It is less likely to erode and clog and your quote should be at least a third lower than your typical cast iron quote. Hopefully this helps.
PVC doesn’t corrode as easily as cast iron and is less likely to clog. The biggest complaint i have heard about PVC is that if you accidentally drilled or hammered into it it would break more easily than cast iron.