Pipe inspection

A home's plumbing splits into two systems: the cold and hot water supply, and the drainage and sewage system.

Possible defects in that system vary widely: from the worst, leaks, to faulty installation of the drainage, wastewater and sewage system that causes bad odors, down to functional issues such as missing double drainage on a balcony, and everything in between.

Cold and hot water supply

Water supply systems today use advanced plastics such as SP pipe or PEX.

That is a change from the steel piping installed in the past: strong, but prone to corrosion, so that after 20 years it almost always needs replacing, or at least repairing.

Plastic piping is not defect-free either. If the connections, mainly on SP pipe, are not made by a skilled professional with the right equipment, leaks can follow.

The real difficulty with pipe leaks is that the piping is hidden, either under the flooring or behind the cladding. Pinpointing a leak usually means removing a section of flooring, exposing the pipe, and replacing the damaged part.

By the time that happens, the water that leaked has already spread through the sand and gravel bedding, pushing its dampness above the standard: 3% in the gravel bed, 6% in the sand.

Even after the pipe is fixed, that dampness keeps rising by capillary action from the bedding under the floor into the walls, causing peeling and bulging above the baseboards and, in severe cases, mold and damage to the apartment's thermal insulation.

Wastewater and sewage

The wastewater system that drains the sinks and shower needs inspection boxes connecting it, so that dirt building up inside the system can be cleaned out.

On a horizontal drain, Israeli Standard (SI) 1205.2 requires inspection boxes at:

a. The start of the drain.

b. Every point where the drain changes direction.

c. Every connection with a side drain.

d. Every section of drain whose length equals its nominal diameter multiplied by 100.

There's a catch, though: without floor traps in the right places in the inspection boxes and drain openings, bad odors from the piping will rise straight through into the bathroom.

Drainage

An apartment's drainage system mainly runs through the balcony, the vertical gutters coming down from the roof and upper-floor balconies, and the laundry enclosure.

One common defect is missing the double drainage required since January 2001 under Israeli Standard 1205 for water piping.

Here is a detail showing how double drainage is installed:

Without double drainage, water that gets under the flooring has nowhere to go.

The result: the sand or gravel bedding beneath the flooring stays damp, and minerals build up on the grout as the water evaporates, showing up as a white powder on the grout.