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 Air date:
Feb. 9, 1999
Summary:
For thousands of
Canadian homeowners, it's a
nightmare that's come
true: a leak in the plumbing, somewhere behind the drywall, under the new
and expensive tiles. This is a story that's caused untold headaches for
homeowners, millions of dollars in lawsuits south of the border and now
it's a story the Canadian Standards Association doesn't want you to hear.
More
Information:
Pierre Laflamme is a
Quebec City businessman. In 1985 he had a new home built in the suburbs.
The first problems showed up in 1992.
 That year his plumbing sprang not one but three leaks.
Laflamme ripped out walls, replaced the pipe, and covered it up. But in
1994 it happened again, just one leak this time, and again last fall, four
more leaks.
Several renovations
and several thousand dollars later, Laflamme was fed up. He went to see a
lawyer.
"It's
simple," he says. "I want to change all the pipes."
 Laflamme is not the only one. In Quebec alone more than 100
homeowners with similar problems have contacted lawyer Denis Borgias.
They've joined 3,000 other consumers in a Vancouver-based class action law
suit. The suit is aimed at three big US companies and it charges that
they've known about the problems for years.
"I think it's
deplorable that certain manufacturers would dare put such a product on the
market knowing it was defective," Laflamme says.
The plumbing in
Laflamme's home is a polybutylene system. That's PolyB, or PB for short:
lengths of grey polybutylene pipe linked with acetal fittings. The US
companies named in the law suit make the raw materials.
PolyB systems were
introduced in the late 1970s for home plumbing and for hot water heating.
They were easier to install than traditional copper and cheaper too. At
least in the short term.
 But, as Pierre Laflamme has discovered, there can serious
long-term costs with PolyB plumbing and that's left him, in his words,
"very angry, very shocked and frustrated."
Laflamme is angry
with the manufacturers. But he's very angry with the Canadian regulators
for allowing the defective product on the market. "What really strikes
me is the CSA logo," Laflamme says, pointing out that the pipe in his
house was approved by the Canadian Standards Association.
It was the CSA that
certified PolyB for use in this country, so where are they now that it's
starting to leak? CSA refused speak to us on camera. They wanted to know
what all the fuss was about. Their records show only two cases in all of
Canada where the CSA approved product failed. But Pierre Laflamme's case
isn't on their list.
Don and Barb Atkinson
count themselves unfortunate colleagues of Pierre Laflamme. They're afraid
to travel, and they don't leave their Vancouver home without shutting off
the water for fear of leaks.
They moved into the
house in 1986 and it was a couple of years later that the leaks started to
occur.
 "To date we have had 22 leaks that are documented since 1991,
and I can break it down by date," Don says. The Atkinson's list
continues to grow; the most recent tally is $1,946.82 over the eight years.
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