Gutting a business for pipes...how much to charge?

It may not seem like it sometimes but i really do agree. Most of the housing stock that i'm working with on a daily basis is over sixty years old. There are a lot of hazards to deal with not the least of which is lead. There's a reason why construction work is listed as one of the top ten most dangerous jobs here in the states. If you don't keep your head in the game you will get hurt.



The worst part of most jobs is the demolition phase. That's what we're talking about here. It's darn good advise to be careful when dealing with old pipe.

I did quite a few " First Draw" water samples from people's faucets during my time on the job. The idea was to come in the very first thing in the morning and collect a sample of water that had been sitting undisturbed in the plumbing system overnight. We had a set of guidelines to go by and would selectively target those homes most likely to give us the highest readings.

We had what was considered one of the worst water districts in the state. Things were so bad i had to reach out to my liaison officer to the Federal EPA to have the system shut down. ( Bah ... more war stories.... who cares. )

Despite numerous other water quality problems i don't recall lead ever being a problem. Since that time we've spent a ton of state & federal grant money on " getting the lead out " to remain in compliance with EPA regulations. I've seen the money go flying out the window to fix something that maybe wasn't a problem to begin with. I see the engineers & the companies that specialize in selling municipal piping supplies get rich but the true benefit to the people seems minimal. < sigh > People are so greedy sometimes.

I'm left wondering if maybe we've gone a little too far with this.

What we've got in place right now is pretty good. Should we spend billions in infrastructure just to get that little bit more ?

I've lost three friends to cancer in the past 18 mos but i've never known someone who died of lead poisoning.