Undersink terrible plumbing and water damage?

[puntloos]

The plumbing under my sink has been an absolute headache since forever, this is a new house, and a picture of the current state is below (at the bottom an illustration of what's what.)

 

My problem, there have been a few leaks, water has certainly dripped past the pipes, probably into the foundation of the house. Perhaps not a *ton* but probably at least 20 litres. Also the site is really continuously damp, condensation from mains that will go straight back down into the foundation where mains comes from 

 

Potential problems:

1. Some good amount of liters of water with no 'obvious' place to go, sitting under house somewhere? Or is that totally fine, or are foundations perhaps designed to get rid of water over time? 
2. Damp pipes - the builder claims the cold mains is impossible to completely lag to prevent condensation, but I'm concerned the pipes embedded in my foundation will rust and at some point burst on me? Not sure how you would fix basically a burst mains somewhere below the house...

 

Thoughts?

 

 

Frankly I think a proper plumber needs to redo this entirely. My question, how would you do this better? Given there's so many valves, as an amateur I would probably use something like this - https://www.reliancevalves.com/gb/en/products/flow-control/plumbing-strainers-flow-regulators-manifolds/potable-water-manifolds 

 

 

 

Or perhaps this would constrain mains too much so keep the 'main bend' into the wall intact but do all the undersink work with a manifold like this? Given that there is a current leak (the valve to 'unknown' is probably damaged) is dripping, perhaps this is a great moment to redo it all?

 

Or is the current state not that unreasonable and I'm just imagining things?

 

Note there's an invisible-in-this-pic bend right above the mains that goes through the wall, which is really the main inlet to the rest of the house (buffer, softener etc is on other side of the wall). I actually don't know what the pipe right next to the mains does.. embarassing

 

 

Edited February 8 by puntloos

[Chanmenie]

12 minutes ago, puntloos said:

Damp pipes - the builder claims the cold mains is impossible to completely lag to prevent condensation, but I'm concerned the pipes embedded in my foundation will rust and at some point burst on me? Not sure how you would fix basically a burst mains somewhere below the house...

They won’t rust as they won’t be steel

the rising main is mostly likely blue and is mdpe which won’t corrode or rust 

 

I don’t get any condensation on either of my rising main pipes or any of the cold pipes under the sinks ?

Edited February 8 by Chanmenie

[puntloos]

10 minutes ago, Chanmenie said:

They won’t rust as they won’t be steel

the rising main is mostly likely blue and is mdpe which won’t corrode or rust 

Good, that's comforting, although indeed water or soaking the concrete in my foundation .. problem?

10 minutes ago, Chanmenie said:

I don’t get any condensation on either of my rising main pipes or any of the cold pipes under the sinks ?

I think the important part is that MDPE/plastic is "fine" but my pipes seem to be metal-y. Metal is more sturdy, plastic is less drippy? I've been told that the risk with plastic-y pipes is that they will crack at some point. True?

[Chanmenie]

The only metal you should have would be copper, which also will not rust, but yes it’s more likely to have condensation 

 

Not sure what you mean by metal-y or plastic-y ?

Edited February 8 by Chanmenie

[puntloos]

5 minutes ago, Chanmenie said:

The only metal you should have would be copper, which also will not rust, but yes it’s more likely to have condensation 

 

Not sure what you mean by metal-y or plastic-y ?

Oh like you said, just saying that the condensation all comes from metal (like you said probably copper, or maybe aluminium?) and plastic (edpm? pvc?) will not condensate but might break sooner? Or is that a myth?

[ProDave]

When you say "water damage" are you referring to the brown stain on the shelf?  That looks more like the waste fitting dripping, which should be easy to trace and fix.

 

Agreed it could be neater, but unless any pipes are actually leaking I would adopt the "it ain't broke, don't fix it" approach.  Some more pipe lagging would not go amiss 

[JohnMo]

11 minutes ago, puntloos said:

Oh like you said, just saying that the condensation all comes from metal (like you said probably copper, or maybe aluminium?) and plastic (edpm? pvc?) will not condensate but might break sooner? Or is that a myth?

Unless you have cold water running continuously, you do not get much condensation. What does form just evaporates off when the cold is switched off. The main pipe coming in to the house (blue plastic) never seems to even get damp, as nothing really runs long enough.

 

Haven't even bothered to insulate our pipes and very unlikely I ever would.

 

[puntloos]

1 hour ago, ProDave said:

When you say "water damage" are you referring to the brown stain on the shelf?  That looks more like the waste fitting dripping, which should be easy to trace and fix.

Nah the stain is 'ok' (clearly damage but not a worry).

 

I'm looking more at this: with paint peeling away (and mould?), and the pipe itself also looking a little... warty.

 

One very important thing I believe is more psychological than anything - as renters you simply never look critically at 'service areas' - the understair cupboard, the meter closet etc. 

 

As a homeowner with a new build I'm thinking should I be picky about pipes that are 'working fine' but a bit grotty looking? We can hide this view behind a cupboard thing and ta-daa.. but I also (esp. with water dripping deep into the house stuff like I mentioned) worry that bad visuals translate to problems down the line?

 

[puntloos]

1 hour ago, JohnMo said:

Unless you have cold water running continuously, you do not get much condensation. What does form just evaporates off when the cold is switched off. The main pipe coming in to the house (blue plastic) never seems to even get damp, as nothing really runs long enough.

I was wondering about this. Maybe it always leaked rather than that there ever was major condensation...

1 hour ago, ProDave said:

Agreed it could be neater, but unless any pipes are actually leaking I would adopt the "it ain't broke, don't fix it" approach.  Some more pipe lagging would not go amiss 

Yea, so currently they are actually leaking, and they need to fix a mistake (they connected mains to our utility sink, we want softened there) so now's as good a time as any to demand them to re-do it, or is that too much?

Edited February 8 by puntloos

[Nickfromwales]

7 hours ago, puntloos said:

Yea, so currently they are actually leaking

 

7 hours ago, puntloos said:

so now's as good a time as any to demand them to re-do it, or is that too much?

Yes, if they left you with leaking plumbing!!

 

You have no worries regarding pipes cracking / breaking down / rusting / corroding, tbh, as the materials used are for just this very thing eg to be wet  The blue MDPE is bombproof, and copper pipe will outlive us both.