Water leakage from a pipe is most often blamed on aging infrastructure when the most proximate cause is not related to age at all.  In our experience, most leaks are created from defects which were present from the day the pipe was installed, or by subsequent construction or operational damage to pipes after installation.  These leaks in a water supply or water distribution system can be very difficult to detect, locate, and repair.  Although there are many different leak detection methods, most of them will be ineffective, or too expensive, or disruptive to customers, or not applicable to your specific situation. These leak detection methods include manual acoustic detection, acoustic correlation detection, dye testing, metering, level monitoring, isolation testing, electrical resistance detection, infrared thermography, and “looking for a wet spot”.

It turns out that it is probably more effective to prevent the causes of leakage in the first place. Leaks are most frequently from defects which were present from the day the pipe was installed, or subsequent construction or operational damage after pipe installation. These are the most proximate causes, and they are not related to ageing infrastructure.

The next time you have a water leak in a pipe, check it against the following list of causes, and see if the pipe really failed due to old age:

  • Leakage from defective pipe or damaged gaskets. This problem would probably have been identified and corrected at the time of construction if the quality-control and acceptance pressure testing had been performed correctly.
  • Galvanized iron pipe used for buried watermain. Most water and soil chemistry is too corrosive to allow the use of galvanized pipe for a permanent water supply pipe in buried applications. If it will not provide adequate service for a minimum of 50-75 years in your specific situation, then it should never have been installed.
  • Dissimilar-metal corrosion where steel and copper pipes are connected together without electrical isolation between them. This is most often seen in smaller diameter pipes such as water service pipes.
  • Pipe damage during installation from using the wrong material for pipe bedding, not using enough pipe bedding, or using bad compaction techniques which put excessive force on the pipe during backfilling.
  • Adjacent parallel utility trenching which caused the existing pressurized pipe to deflect enough to crack it open.
  • Construction of a new utility going under the existing pressurized pipe, which makes it difficult to get proper compaction for pipe support and therefore requires specific backfill materials and methods. These materials and methods are slightly more expensive than just pushing dirt into the hole and hoping everything works out OK.  Therefore, it may not be done correctly.
  • Construction of a new utility going over the top of the existing pressurized pipe. The existing pipe can be damaged when the soil is compacted to backfill the new utility.
  • Installation of new utilities using trenchless methods which drilled right through the existing pressurized pipe.

You may have noticed that neither of these types of defects were caused by the age of the pipe.