Database · Collecting reports
National Poly-B Incident Database
A community-contributed record of polybutylene leaks, replacement costs and insurance outcomes across Canada, reviewed before use and published only as anonymised totals.
Status: collecting and reviewing reports
The public dataset is not open yet. It opens once enough reviewed reports are in to say something meaningful without exposing any single household. Until then this page shows no counts, charts or maps, because a handful of reports would be more misleading than none. You can help by submitting a report.
Why a national database
Ask how often poly-B actually fails in Canada and nobody can give you a number. Insurers keep claims records but do not publish them by pipe material. Plumbers see the homes that call them, not the ones that never leak. Inspectors see a snapshot at the point of sale. The published literature fills the gap with estimates of how many homes have the pipe, and with commentary on why some regions seem to fare better than others.123
Individual owners hold the missing detail: when the leak happened, whether it was on a hot or cold line, what the fitting was made of, how old the system was, what the damage cost, what the repipe cost and what the insurer did. Collected carefully and in enough volume, those details can show patterns that no single plumber or broker can see.
The database has three parts, matching the three kinds of report the submission form accepts.
What the database collects
Incidents
A leak, burst, fitting failure or visible degradation of poly-B piping, or an insurance problem caused by having it: when and where it happened, how serious it was, and the conditions around it.
Report an incidentReplacement experiences
What a full or partial repipe really cost and how long it took, split into labour, materials and drywall where you know them, and the material chosen to replace poly-B.
Share a replacement costInsurance claims
The outcome of a water-damage claim involving poly-B: approved, denied, partial or pending, the amounts claimed and paid, and whether poly-B had been disclosed to the insurer.
Report an insurance claimHow reports are reviewed
Nothing goes into the dataset straight from the form. Every report passes through the same steps.
Received and held
A new report is stored as pending. It is not visible to anyone outside the HAUSE desk and is not counted anywhere.
Screened
A reviewer checks that the required fields are present and consistent: a leak dated before the house was built, or a payout larger than the claim, gets a second look. Obvious duplicates are merged, and test entries, spam and sample data are rejected.
Clarified where possible
If you left an email address and something is unclear, the desk may write to ask. Reports without an email are reviewed on what they contain.
Anonymised
Your name and email are separated from the report and never published. Location is kept only to city and, at most, the first three characters of the postal code. Free-text descriptions are edited to remove anything that could identify a home, a person, a policy or a claim number.
Approved or rejected
Approved reports join the dataset used for totals. Rejected reports are kept out of every figure, and the reason is noted internally.
Field definitions: incident reports
These are the fields on the incident form, with the values the database accepts. Fields marked required must be filled for a report to be reviewed.
| Field | What it records | Accepted values |
|---|---|---|
| Incident date (required) | When the leak or problem was found | A calendar date |
| Province (required) | Province or territory of the home | Any of the 13 provinces and territories |
| City (required) | Municipality of the home | Free text; published only as a city |
| Postal code prefix | Forward sortation area, for finer regional grouping | First three characters only, for example T2P |
| Incident type (required) | What went wrong | Leak, burst pipe, fitting failure, pipe degradation, insurance issue, other |
| Severity (required) | How serious the outcome was, in the reporter’s judgement | Minor, moderate, severe, catastrophic |
| Plumbing age | Years the poly-B had been in service | Whole number of years |
| Water line | Which line failed | Hot, cold, both, unknown |
| Fitting type | What the joint at or near the failure was made of | Copper, brass, acetal (grey plastic), other plastic, unknown |
| Estimated damage cost | Cost of repairing the damage, in dollars | Published only in ranges, never as exact amounts |
| Insurance outcome | Whether insurance paid for the damage | Yes, no, pending, no claim made |
| Description (required) | What happened, where the failure was and how it was found | Free text; edited before any excerpt is used |
Field definitions: replacement experiences
| Field | What it records | Accepted values |
|---|---|---|
| Replacement date (required) | When the repipe was finished | A calendar date |
| Province and city (required) | Where the home is | Province or territory; city as free text |
| New material (required) | What replaced the poly-B | PEX-A, PEX-B, copper, CPVC, other |
| Home size | Finished floor area | Square feet |
| Total cost (required) | Everything paid for the replacement | Dollars |
| Labour, material and drywall costs | The split of the total, where known | Dollars for each |
| Duration | Working days from start to finish | Whole number of days |
| Contractor name and rating | Who did the work and how it went | Used for internal checks only; never published |
| Would recommend | Whether you would recommend the approach you took | Yes or no |
| Experience notes | Surprises, access problems, what you would change | Free text; edited before any excerpt is used |
Field definitions: insurance claims
| Field | What it records | Accepted values |
|---|---|---|
| Claim date (required) | When the claim was made | A calendar date |
| Province (required) | Where the insured home is | Province or territory |
| Insurer name (required) | The company that handled the claim | Free text; used only in aggregate |
| Claim status (required) | Where the claim ended up | Approved, denied, partial, pending |
| Claim and payout amounts | What was asked for and what was paid | Dollars; published only in ranges |
| Poly-B disclosed (required) | Whether the insurer had been told the home had poly-B | Yes or no |
| Claim notes and denial reason | Context and, for denials, the reason given | Free text; edited before any excerpt is used |
What will be published, and when
When the dataset opens, it will show totals, never individual reports. The plan is to publish:
- counts of reviewed incidents by province, type and severity;
- the spread of plumbing age at failure, in bands of years;
- how often failures involved hot lines, cold lines or both, and which fitting types were present;
- damage-cost and repipe-cost ranges by province and replacement material;
- the share of claims approved, denied, partly paid or pending, split by whether poly-B had been disclosed.
Small groups will be suppressed so that no single report can be picked out, and every table will show how many reviewed reports it rests on. Contractor names and ratings will never be published. Insurer names will appear only in aggregate, and only where enough reports exist for a comparison to mean something.
The dataset opens once enough reviewed reports have accumulated. We will not set a date in advance, and we will not fill the gap with sample or estimated data.
What these reports can and cannot show
Reports are volunteered, so they over-represent homes that had a problem. The database can describe the leaks, costs and claim outcomes people report; it cannot give a failure rate, because nobody knows how many poly-B homes never leak. Every published table will carry that caveat, and totals should not be read as the odds that your pipe will fail.
Published evidence available today
Until the dataset opens, these verified findings from the research library are the best public evidence. Each is an estimate or a single organisation’s data, not a Canadian failure rate.
| Finding | Source type |
|---|---|
| Common industry estimates put poly-B in as many as 700,000 Canadian homes.1 | Insurance risk engineers |
| An unconfirmed estimate puts about 148,000 Alberta homes on poly-B, mostly with copper or brass insert fittings.2 | Provincial government fact sheet |
| Roughly 225,000 Quebec homes were estimated to have poly-B in 2015, with few leaks reported by contractors or consumer groups at the time.3 | Consumer guide column |
| Across 148 U.S. apartment properties with poly pipe, supply lines failed at 28.4 years on average.4 | Replacement-company project data |
| Grey polybutylene pipe has shown premature failure, and insurers may exclude related claims or deny coverage.5 | Provincial housing agency |
| Insurers may surcharge, set a replacement deadline, or decline water-damage or property coverage for a poly-B home.6 | Insurance brokerage |
| Laboratory ageing at 80 °C found that pressure as well as chlorine speeds loss of the pipe’s antioxidant protection.7 | Peer-reviewed study |
Privacy in brief
Reports are stored by the HAUSE Network for review and aggregate publication only. The optional email address is used solely to clarify your report and is never published or added to a mailing list without separate consent. Please keep street addresses, policy numbers and people’s names out of the free-text boxes; if they slip in, the reviewer removes them. The full privacy page explains how submitted details are handled.
Take part or read more
- Submit a reportIncident, replacement cost or insurance claim
- Research libraryEvery verified published finding, by topic and province
- Insurance and poly-BWhat underwriters ask and how claims usually work
- Get Replacement QuoteThe desk replies with next steps and, where available and with your consent, a local contractor
Questions · 4
Frequently asked questions
Why can’t I see any numbers yet?
Because there are not yet enough reviewed reports to publish totals that are both meaningful and anonymous. Showing a few early reports would invite readers to treat them as typical. The page will change once the dataset opens, and each table will state how many reports it is built from.
Is this database the same as an insurer’s claims data?
No. It is built only from reports that homeowners, buyers, landlords and condo owners choose to send. Insurers do not contribute records, and nothing here is shared with an insurer in a way that identifies you.
Can a plumber, inspector or broker submit reports?
Yes, with the owner’s agreement and without identifying the client. Professionals who see several poly-B failures a year are an especially useful source, as long as each report describes one incident and is not repeated by the owner.
Does submitting a report get me a quote or a claim decision?
No. A report is a contribution to the evidence base only. For help with a replacement, use Request a quote; for a claim, contact your insurer or broker directly.
Sources
- BFL CANADA Risk Control Engineering — Ask an Engineer No. 17: Polybutylene piping systems (March 2020), hosted by CHOA · accessed 2026-09-28
- Alberta Municipal Affairs — Polybutylene (Poly-B) Pressure Water Piping fact sheet (Standata; archived copy) · accessed 2026-09-28
- Guide Perrier (Y. Perrier) — Tuyaux de polybutylène : est-ce une plomberie à risque ? (November 2015) · accessed 2026-09-28
- SageWater — Polybutylene pipes (project data June 2011–March 2022) · accessed 2026-09-28
- BC Housing — Maintenance Matters No. 21: Preventing water leaks in your home (February 2018) · accessed 2026-09-28
- Westland Insurance — Has your broker asked if you have polybutylene (Poly-B) plumbing? · accessed 2026-09-28
- Fujii et al. — Influence of residual chlorine and pressure on degradation of polybutylene pipe, Polymer Degradation and Stability 167 (2019) · accessed 2026-09-28
Updated 2026-09-28