Know what you have

Polybutylene: the pipe that fails from the inside out

Fitted in millions of American homes between 1978 and 1995. If your Florida house is from that era, this is worth ten minutes with a torch.

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Short answer. Look for flexible grey pipe stamped PB2110, usually 1/2 inch to 1 inch, at the water heater or where the main enters the house. It was installed between 1978 and mid-1995. Two things follow: the class action fund closed in 2009 and will not pay for your repipe, and Citizens will not write a new policy on a house over 20 years old that still has it, which by now is almost any house with its original polybutylene.

What it is and why it fails

Polybutylene went into an estimated 6 to 10 million US homes between 1978 and the middle of 1995. Production stopped around 1996.

The failure is chemical. Chlorine and chloramine in treated public water react with the resin and open micro-fractures that grow outward through the pipe wall over years, until the pipe lets go without warning. Manufacturers disputed that explanation at the time and blamed poor fitting installation instead.

Source: InterNACHI, polybutylene.

How to identify it yourself

It is flexible. It bends. Copper and CPVC do not.
Usually grey, but it was also made in white, silver, black and blue.
Look for the stamp PB2110.
Half an inch to one inch across.
Check where the main enters near the meter or the shutoff, at the water heater, and where pipe stubs out of the wall at fixtures.
Fittings are crimped or clamped plastic or metal, not soldered joints.

Mixed systems are common. Some houses have copper stub-outs with polybutylene in between, so finding copper at the tap does not settle it. Follow the run.

Source: InterNACHI, polybutylene.

The settlement money is gone, and this matters

Cox v. Shell Oil Co. was filed in Tennessee in June 1995. Shell Oil and Hoechst Celanese funded at least $950 million, with no admission of liability, to compensate owners for pipe replacement and water damage across roughly six million properties.

Both deadlines are long past. The opt-out deadline was 20 October 1995. The final deadline to file a claim for payment was 1 November 2009. No claims have been accepted since, and the fund is permanently closed.

If anyone tells you there is still money to claim for your polybutylene, they are wrong, and you should ask yourself what they are selling.

Sources: FindLaw case summary; Lieff Cabraser; Repipe.com on the claim deadline.

The Florida insurance problem

This is the part that costs Florida owners money today, long after the pipe stopped being a legal issue.

Citizens Property Insurance Corporation, Florida's state-backed insurer of last resort, sets out its rule on its own support pages. A dwelling 20 years old or newer with polybutylene may be eligible, if there are no signs of leaks, unrepaired water damage, disrepair or hazards. A new-business risk over 20 years old with polybutylene is not insurable by Citizens under its homeowners, dwelling property and mobile home forms.

Polybutylene was installed between 1978 and mid-1995, so a house still on its original polybutylene is now past that 20-year line. In practice, that means Citizens will not write a new policy on it.

Source: Citizens Property Insurance Corporation, answer 1713, updated 26 January 2026. That page speaks to new policies; it does not say what happens at renewal of an existing one, so ask your own insurer.

Private insurers set their own rules. NBC 6 South Florida documented a non-renewal tied to plumbing type, and the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation told NBC 6 that insurers may consider the age of the home, roof, plumbing, electrical wiring or the heat and air when they underwrite.

Source: NBC 6 South Florida.

Two things we could not establish

Honest gaps, rather than a guess dressed up as a fact:

No published figure exists for how many Florida homes still contain polybutylene. We looked.
We found no Florida statute or ruling that names polybutylene specifically in a seller's disclosure duty. Florida's general duty to disclose known material defects to a buyer is well established, but whether it reaches this pipe is a question for a Florida property lawyer, not for us.

Where this comes from

Every figure above is published by the organisation named beside it. Nothing on this page is our own estimate.