ePIPE®’s LeadSmart™ Team Urges The Real Estate Industry To Include Disclosure Rules about Lead Contributors in Water Systems

SANTA ANA, CALIFORNIA – NOVEMBER 14, 2016 –

Pipe Restoration Technologies, LLC, (PRT) makers of the ePIPE, Lead-Free Leak-Free™ product line, announced today that it is strongly urging the real estate industry to adopt disclosure rules about lead contributors in water piping systems.  

“There currently is a troubling lack of requirements for landlords or property managers to disclose toxic lead contributors in a piping system,” Pipe Restoration Technologies CEO Larry Gillanders said. “This leaves the tenant or home buyer in the dark and at risk. I believe an owner of a residential building has a duty to disclose known water quality issues to a prospective purchaser or tenant, and could potentially be liable for rescission or damages for failure to disclose and for injury resulting from known unsafe drinking water.”

Many American insurance companies issued policies in the mid-1990s that excluded coverage for leadbased liabilities, and some of the exclusions were written vaguely to apply to lead paint as well as lead leached in water.

These lead liability exclusions often include language such as: This insurance does not apply to actual or alleged bodily injury related or attributed to, arising out of resulting from or in any way caused by the ingestion, inhalation or absorption of lead in any form, as well as property damage and personal injury.  

Until the disclosure of lead piping, lead contributors and water quality is included as part of a disclosure process, PRT advises homeowners to ask the sellers to have the property inspected for lead contributors in the piping system and have the water tested at a certified testing facility to check for the presence of lead.

Properties built before 1950, depending on its location, could be served with a lead service line. Houses built in the 1950s through the mid-1990s may also be exposed to lead leaching from lead contributors, such as lead solder on copper pipes and brass fixtures.

 
About Pipe Restoration Technologies, LLC: PRT is the parent company of the ePIPE product and worldwide group of installers that utilize the patented ePIPE process to restore pipes in-place. An alternative to a destructive repipe, this process is achieved using an application of an epoxy barrier coating, which results in a restored, epoxy lined piping system. The process provides a solution for pinhole leaks, epoxy lining, corrosion control and prevention of lead leaching from pipes without the destruction or disruption encountered by pipe replacements. PRT and its affiliated companies have locations throughout the United States, United Kingdom, Belgium, Spain, Mexico and Hong Kong.