I've bought a house in Chorlton in manchester. The house is a middle terrace and has a stop tap approximately 10 metres from the house boundary and the street. I have a builder renovating the house who informed me that there are lead pipes connecting to the water supply and he has alerted me to the health problems with lead. He suggested I contact United Utilities to replace the pipes however their recommended company for pipe replacement gave me a high price for this procedure;

Removing lead and replacing with new pipe work and installing new stop tap will cost £470.00 + v.a.t
Connecting to the street supply and shutting off the old supply will cost a further £200.00 + Vat
Is this a fair price? Can you advise on who to call to get a better quote. Can a regular plumber carry out this work?

Regards

C

I can't begin to say if the price is reasonable. Most plumbers do pipe work. Replacing the supply pipe also means digging up the old one. Likely the high priced contractor would have 2 trades on the job. I see some banner ads here for repiping, slipping new pipes inside the old. If you can find somebody in your area to do that, you could ask for a quote. Cuts out all the digging.

A month ago we had a UK plumber, but I haven't see any posts for a while. He could better answer than any of us in the US. We need him for the UK questions here. We could use a UK electrician too.