New house for us and Polybutylene Pipe question

I am out of town and my wife found a houses she really likes. Before we proceed, can anyone determine from the pic I posted that the plumbing is polybutylene? I am almost certain is it, but our agent seems to think it's something different because she said that polybutylene plumbing was ony used in the 70's and 80's and this house was built in 1992. I just want to try and clear this up before my wife pays for a home inspection that we'll walk away from anyway if it is in fact polybutylene.

Great forum..thanks for all your help..

PB was used until the late 90's. It seems to be, since the pipes appear to be gray, but the lettering on the pipes would be the way to tell for sure.

My brother's house which was built in '95 has PB. He's been fortunate and have had zero issues.

Sure looks like PB to me. check the fittings. If they are copper and not plastic it may be alright for many years. I see it has copper rings which is a good thing also.

The class action suit only covered houses built prior to July 31, 1995.

Looks like PB to me. I've got it in my house, built '88 or so. I've had two failures in the last 3 years, none before that. In both cases the pipe itself split lengthwise. Luckily we were home & kept the damage to a minimum. Unfortunately our leaks missed the deadline for the class action lawsuit so a repipe would be on my dime. If you like the house I'd still make an offer on it. Just factor the cost of a repipe into the deal somehow.

-Dave

You're looking at a "several hundred thousand dollar" investment... Pay a plumber $100 to come out and check it out.... Cheap insurance...

eeeewwww a home run system using poly-b. That's not good at all.

Imagine the worst possible way your house could be plumbed for water.... and a homerun system on PB is about as bad as it gets.

I'm not a plumber ... but here's what I read: PB pipe is more susceptable to failure if the water has a high level of chlorine in it. So if this house is on municiple water (likely to have higher chlorine levels than a well system) the pipe is at higher risk of failing. I think the home run design, while adding more PB piping overall, is a better choice because if one line fails you can just replace that line and probably plug/stop the water at the distribution branch while continuing providing water to the rest of the house while making the repair.
I have a PB piped house. Built in 1990 (on a well) and never had a leak. I also bought some PB to PEX couplers and miscellanous PEX pipe and fittings in case I ever need to make a repair or remodel.

The pipe should say PB on it. In your photo, I cannot determine if the pipe is gray....PB, or milky white...PEX. The dates you mentioned would suggest PB. Google PB pipe, and be prepared to read from now unitl next Christmas about the whole long story.

all a plumber could so is say, "Yes, it's PB", or "No, it is not PB". There is no way to determine whether it will ever cause a problem or not. And, before the deadline, I always told my customers, as soon as I knew they had PB, to call for a repipe. They did not like to repipe unless you had three previous breaks. I had one customer call after two, and when the inspector came by, he told her, "You should have three breaks before we can repipe. You WILL have the third leak by tomorrow, won't you?" She called me and sure enough she did have the required third leak/repair shortly after that.