12 questions to ask any Poly B replacement contractor

The twelve

• 1Will you pull the plumbing permit, and is the inspection included? Every municipality we have verified requires a permit for a repipe, and the inspection record is part of your insurance package. A contractor who suggests skipping it is asking you to fund their shortcut with your coverage.
• 2Is your quote fixed after the site visit? Access drives cost, and access is visible on a walkthrough. Fixed pricing after a site visit is the professional standard; open-ended hourly quotes on a repipe shift all risk to you.
• 3What material do you install, and what chlorine rating does it carry? PE-RT and PEX are the modern standards, and the CL code printed on the pipe is the tested answer to the failure that killed Poly B. A contractor who can name the material, standard and CL rating knows their product.
• 4Is this full removal or partial replacement? Insurers read the completion certificate literally. Partial replacement leaves you a Poly B home at renewal time.
• 5Does the quote include the buried water service line check? The pipe from the street can be polybutylene too, and finding out during a later leak means paying mobilization twice.
• 6Is drywall repair, texture matching and paint in the price? Restoration is a big share of every honest quote. When one bid is thousands cheaper, this is almost always the missing money.
• 7Who does your restoration, your crew or a subcontractor? Either can work, but one contractor owning the whole scope means one schedule, one warranty, and nobody blaming the other trade.
• 8How many days on site, and what is the water outage plan? A crew that can answer precisely has done this hundreds of times. Typical full homes run two to nine days with water off in planned stretches.
• 9What paperwork do I get at the end? The right answer, unprompted: completion certificate stating full removal and the new material, permit and inspection record, pressure test result. That package is the product.
• 10What warranty covers the work, and who backs it? Modern pipe carries long manufacturer warranties; workmanship warranties vary by contractor and matter more, since installation is where systems fail.
• 11Are your plumbers licensed, and can I see proof? Red Seal certification and municipal licensing are checkable facts, not marketing. Every legitimate outfit expects this question.
• 12Can I see recent local jobs or speak to references? Finished-ceiling photos from real jobs tell you more about restoration quality than anything a salesperson says.

Red flags, plainly

A firm price over the phone without a site visit. Closing walls before the inspection. “We can leave the hard runs, nobody will know.” A price dramatically below the market that goes quiet when you ask what restoration is included; the real completed-job ranges tell you what the market actually is. And any pressure to skip the permit: your city’s requirements are verifiable, and so is what skipping them costs you at insurance time.

Why we publish this against ourselves

This site is published by a repipe company, and this page hands you the exact checklist to grill us with. That’s deliberate. A market where buyers ask these questions rewards contractors who do the work properly, and the answers above are the ones we give every day. Bring the list to every bidder, including us.

Published by Poly B Plumbing Guys

This library is maintained by the team that replaces Poly B every day across Alberta and BC. Red Seal certified plumbers, full remove-replace-restore service including drywall and paint, a 25-year warranty, and the completion certificate insurers ask for.

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