Episode Transcript
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It is from around the globe fromthe fifty five KRC. All right back
in it we go thirty three minutesafter the top of the Are you're at
home with Gary Salvin? I knowit's just a couple of weeks ago.
We had Paul Abrams on and heis with Roto Ruter, and I had
him back because things are changing onceagain. Paul Abrams, how are you,
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sir? Well, good morning,Gary, I'm fine. I got
to ask you the question, now, you ready that day that day after
Thanksgiving? Was it as busy aswe thought it was? Or did we
help some folks out? I thinkwe helped some folks out. You know,
for the twenty years I've been withRotor Ruder, it's always been our
busiest day of the year. Andalthough it was in many parts of the
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country, some cities were a littleslower than we've seen in past years.
Super that's good because you know,there is a lot of little, basic,
simple, little things that we covereda couple of weeks ago that can
make your life a lot easier.So maybe we did some folks some good.
And that's that's why we do theshow a little less over time for
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a lot of those service plumbers outthere. Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Well, on the news, Iguess a couple of days ago we heard
and revisited the whole story of leadpipes and legislation that's is it been proposed
or is it loll now about removalof lead pipes and homes and also supplies.
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Can you kind of help us outthere? Yeah, Well, it's
a proposal by the Environmental Protection Agencyand the proposal is that they'll replace all
lead utility service pipes the carry waterover the next ten years, and that's
going to affect, you know,cities all over the country. We were
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all sort of awakened by what happenedin Flint, Michigan a few years ago,
right, but wasn't alone. Thoselead pipes are underground in most states
and they're carrying you know, ourwater supplies, and any lead exposure is
considered unsafe and that's been proven reallywith even brain development and small children,
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and it's not good for adults either, you know, having lead in our
blood and in our system. Sothe legislation that's being proposed is for the
service supply, not necessarily what's inthe homes well as you know, you
know, Gary, they began thisthis crusade against lead and plumbing right back
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in the nineteen eighties, and theystarted pushing utilities to to to get let
out of the system. And thenthey started realizing that lead is in the
homes. That many of the fawcetparts that were installed in homes had had
led lead lines in them. Soit might not have been you know,
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solid lead pipes from you know,from your meter to your faucet, but
there were lead sections and a lotof those. So most of those were
eliminated in the nineteen eighties. Therewere some more steps in the nineteen nineties
to get rid of them. Andyou know, I think plumbers solder is
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something the use of lead solder wasused by plumbers for ye yeah, going
back years or more. And thatlead and copper rule in nineteen ninety one
eliminated proposed the elimination of of copperby service plumbers and new construction plumbers.
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And today, you know, rotorritter saders with lead free sawder when we
sought at all, most of ourlocations have shifted over to those pro pressed
tools, secure copper fittings without anylead solder or solder at all, or
even open plain torches, which canpose a fire risk. So a lot
of those things are going away inthe name of safety, right, right,
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So is there and I'm sure thereis, But I mean, do
you have any idea what the statistics? In other words, is there how
much? How big is this problemstill? I mean, you're right,
I pretty much much my working life, we've talked about lead, leading paints,
leaden pipes, and everything else.But how big of an issue is
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it currently? I guess the suppliesare certainly big, but how big of
an issue is it inside our homes? Now homes a lot less and modern
homes. You know, there's justyou know, over the as we talked
aboutsence in the nineteen eighties nineteen nineties, you don't see so much of it
in that, but we still seea fair amount of lead in old homes.
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And you'll find that many of thehomeowners you know, continue to have
that attitude, well, if itain't broke, don't fix it, and
it's working fine, but you knowthat lead is still out there. And
those you know, one hundred yearold homes and eighty year old homes,
you know, as they have problemsand a service plumber comes in there and
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make some repairs. He's likely toreplace some of those sections with either copper
or some sort of a plastic pipeor packs or something like that and getting
them out of there. So there'sbeen some attrition. But make no mistake,
there's a lot of lead piping stillout there in American homes. You
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know, there's a couple big thingsin these older homes. And I'm talking
a hundred year old homes just likeyou were obviously lead piping. The other
thing we got into last week orthe week before is nobin tube wiring and
nobin two wiring. Quite honestly,a lot of insurance companies aren't even insuring
the homes now, so it's forcinghomeowners if they ever want to sell their
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house or even get insurance, toreplace NOB and tube wiring. And these
are two big issues, right,I mean, they're big problems, big
expenses. Do you have people ordo you anticipate people reaching out the rotor
router now and saying, Hey,I need an inspection my home. Do
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I have lead pipes? Can Ichange it out? How much is it
going to cost? I mean,are we that far down the road on
that yet or have we been doingit? We see that we do see
that with people who are we havingolder homes, they'll call Rota Ruter and
say, can you get a bumberover here that with some experience and lead
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and give us some alternative, giveus some options and some idea of what
it would cost to say, replacethese lead service lines with pecks, which
would be a pretty easy proposition dependingon where those lines are running. But
PEX is so flexible and so itcan go places that you don't necessarily have
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to tear walls open and sections ofyour home to replace those old pipes.
So I think it's easier than somepeople realize. Now. Is it cheap?
Of course not. You know,you're tying up guys, you know,
experienced plumbers for a few days inmost cases these older, large homes
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to do that. But yeah,I think you're right, Gary, that'll
probably be something that we see wherehomeowners won't be able to sell those homes
if those updates aren't made because it'sso far behind the modern plumbing code.
Right. Well, I even thoughtwhen I first heard that story break.
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I know it's over the next tenyears, but I think it's going to
get some people's attention, and itmight even get some insurance companies attentions.
I mean it is. This isn'tjust a story to frighten you. This
is they got all kinds of dataon this. And you know, lead
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is is dangerous, It gets inyour blood systems, and older is a
few things. So you know,nobody's going to want to buy a home
that isn't brought up to code.And quite honestly, people that are living
in these older homes are going tohave second thoughts. How much is this
stuff hurting me? Now? Well, you're right. You know, we
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know that long time exposure to leadit has terrible effects on children's growth or
development. I saw one quote Garywhere a pediatrician said millions of children have
had their water to live through apoisonous straw. And she was referring to
the fact that in many American communities, the water they drink is still running
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right through those poisonous lead pipe.Yeah, so how does this affect roto
uter where you are? You know, when it's talk about changing or replacing
service supplies, who handles that,who does that kind of work? Is
that the cities aren't going to dothat, right, They're going to contract
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large plumbing services. I guess todo that, right they will, and
and ones that are you know,used to you know, they have that
sort of scale to to replace milesand miles of service pipes and and that's
not roto Router. We do residentialand commercial and light municipal. But you
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know, so maybe in some instancessome of our larger branches might get involved
in some of that, but forthe most part, those are going to
be plumbing construction companies, contractors ona huge scale, and they'll be tasked
with that. And my understanding isthat President Biden earmarked fifteen billion dollars from
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removing those lead service lines, andmost of that is paid for out of
the infrastructure law that was passed intwenty twenty one. So the good news
is is most of that money isalready earmarked and the remaining costs, of
course, will be paid for bythe water utility providers who turn around to
charge you and me and others.But I think it's money well spent.
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You know, there's a lot ofwaste in government, there's no doubt about
that. But boy, you know, this is one where we're actually doing
something that benefits a lot of people, right right, And you know,
once it's taken care of from thissupply line, then we have to look
at our own homes, in ourown response abilities. The big buzzword all
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the time in the last ten yearshas been affordable housing. As housing stock
gets older in our cities, theyhave these problems with lead pipes and nob
and tube wiring, and but thosechanges have to be made in the houses
too. Are you still got kindof the same problem? You're right,
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you know they you know, there'sthe big straw and then they're the smaller
straws, right right. That leadand copper rule you know, had plumbers,
you know, giving up the solder. We at the same time it
mandated that plumbing fixtures like faucets andvalves could no longer be manufactured or repaired
with any lead components. But makeno mistake, those are out there and
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we see them daily. Yeah.Yeah, Well, and so many people
that have houses and have older homes, they may not be aware. I
mean, you know it's been inthe news. I know it's been changing.
You and I have watched the transitiontake place for the last twenty thirty
years, but there are homeowners thatreally don't. So I really wanted to
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get you on and I really appreciateyou stopping by and having this conversation.
If people will hear this in thenews and their concern, can they reach
out the rotor router where you wouldhave a plumber just kind of inspect and
kind of give them a clue ofwhat's going on in their house or whether
it's all clear. I mean,is that something you folks would do?
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It is? Yeah, and especiallyyou know I would. I don't want
to panic anyone. If your homewas built, you know, in the
nineteen eighties or after, you havevery low risk, right, and in
the nineteen seventies some risk, Butif you're going back to a home that
was produced twenty four, say,the nineteen seventies, and yeah, especially
in those one hundred year old homes, but forties and thirties there's there's quite
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a bit of left and those andso those would be the people that would
think about it. And if youhave lead and you're you know that it's
in your public supply. Uh,for instance, I think it's Rhode Island,
Michigan. There's a few states thathave a lot more lead than others,
but we all have it right,But there's things you can do you
can get those, you know,a whole house water filtration system. They're
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not all created equal, but alot of them do a great job of
either eliminating lead or reducing it tosuch trace amounts that you know, you're
out of the woods in terms ofbig danger, and I think you know
those are. That's a that's aworthwhile investment. If you are in an
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area that has lead service pipes inthe ground that lead to all the neighborhoods
in your town, or you livein an older home, you can filter
out a lot of that. It'scalled a band aid, it's a it's
a it's a protection system. Butyou know, we believe in it,
and many Rotor Ritter branches are reallypushing into that. We've done a lot
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of that over the last few years, and we see that as a big
part of our future is water quality. Right, you know, there's not
just lead, but you've got theseforever chemicals and things like that, so
sure, yeah, there's not justRotor Root. There are many companies out
there that offer great filtration systems foryour home, and that's a good way
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to get out in front of thisproblem. But there's no substitute for just
replacing the dog on lead right outthere. Well, I agree, and
I'm sure you do the water testingin the homes and you can check on
how much you know, chlorines inthe water, which is terrible for some
of our toilet parts, and howmuch leads in the water and find out
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exactly what's in there. You folksdo that, and then people can you
know, begin to start learning,you know a little bit about their water
quality. Yeah, they can.And you know, if you have any
questions or concerns, I mean,I would say you can definitely go to
rotorador dot com, enter your zipcode and you'll see what local services are
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offered by that rotorator, Okay,and then look for water software infiltration system
options. And then go to theEPA dot gov site and then type in
lead pipes and you'll see good governmentinformation that is reliable, not necessarily a
sales pitch. Okay. You knowthis is and I think people need to
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educate themselves so they don't panic,but they understand the risk. Right,
just start the learning curve. Paul, thank you so much for your time
today. I really really appreciate it. Always a pleasure. Gary. All
right, have a good weekend.Take care you too, all right?
Paul Abrams from Rotorrouter again is rotrouterdot com. If you want to check
that out get some more information,I encourage you to do so. You're
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at home with Gary Sullivan. Helpfor your home is just a click away
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