Old pipe

The polybutylene settlement is closed. The pipe is still in the wall.

Polybutylene supply pipe went into houses from January 1, 1978 through July 31, 1995. It is often gray, blue, or black plastic, and it may be marked Qest or PB. Cox v. Shell Oil settled in 1995 and paid to replumb more than 300,000 homes. The claim window closed in 2009. A leak in that pipe today is not a claim on that fund. Mainline places contractor coverage from 779 3rd Avenue, Chula Vista. Call 619-420-8600. This page does not show a premium or a repipe price.

The fund was about a billion dollars. It is not open.

Cox v. Shell Oil was a national class case over polybutylene plumbing systems and yard service lines. The settlement site describes a fund of about a billion dollars, administered by the Consumer Plumbing Recovery Center, for systems installed in that 1978 to 1995 window. Class counsel reports that the relief reached $1.2 billion, not counting administrative costs and legal fees, and that more than 300,000 homes were replumbed at no cost to the owner.

The settlement was not a recall and it was not a lifetime warranty. A homeowner had to have a qualifying leak and had to file inside the deadline for that kind of house and fitting. On the settlement site, a single-family house with metal insert fittings had an outside filing date of May 1, 2009. After 2009 there is no open class claim for a pipe that fails now.

Sources: the Cox settlement eligibility page and class counsel's account of the fund. Checked October 13, 2026.

One fitting repaired leaves a polybutylene system.

The failures that built the class case were in the pipe and the insert fittings after they met ordinary drinking water. A plumber who cuts out one split and couples the new piece to the old plastic has repaired that leak. The rest of the system is the same pipe the settlement was about.

The invoice should say what came out and what is still in the wall. "Repaired leak" does not say that. A later reader, the customer or a carrier, will treat the last person who opened the wall as the person who saw the system. The note is how that person shows the repair stopped at one fitting.

The pipe itself is a maintenance item on a typical homeowners policy. The water that gets out is a different question, and that question is often whether the release was sudden or had been seeping. A California kitchen case on that split is here. A carrier that pays a water loss and then sues the plumber is a different file, and one of those suits is here.