Poly-B, oil tanks and other hidden costs in Vancouver homes

Three unrelated problems overlap on one narrow band of homes. Asbestos is a concern in anything built before 1990. Poly-B ran heavy from 1985 to 1997. And no rainscreen means anything before 1996 in the City of Vancouver. Stack those together and a home built between 1985 and 1996 can be carrying all three at once, and look immaculate from the sidewalk.

That isn't me telling you older homes are bad. Some of the best built houses in the city went up long before any of this. And it's fixable. A home in that window with the repipe done, the envelope done and a hazmat survey on file is the opposite of a risk, because somebody else already paid. The one to be careful with is the untouched one: original everything, one owner, immaculate.

I'm a Red Seal sprinkler fitter, so pipe is my world. This is the one I rank first, and almost nobody else does. Poly-B is a plastic supply line, usually grey, sometimes pale blue or black. Open the cabinet under a bathroom sink and look, then look at the lines off the hot water tank. It goes brittle from the inside wall outward while the outside looks normal, so you can't inspect your way out of it. Failures cluster at the fittings, buried in walls and ceilings, which means the first symptom is often the ceiling of the unit below you.

The reason this is live right now is insurance. Some insurers will decline outright. Others want a plumbing report, a higher water deductible or a hard deadline to replace it. A house you can't insure is a house somebody can't finance, which makes it a house that is hard to sell. Replacing it with PEX or copper generally restores eligibility, so ask for the invoice, because a repiped 1992 house has better plumbing than a 2015 house nobody has touched.

Then there's the one that ambushes people: in-floor heat. Poly-B was also used for radiant tubing in slabs, and a repipe doesn't fix that. It becomes two projects, and the second one is a whole new heat source. I walked through a home with buyers who wanted to open up the floor plan, and new ducting changed their whole renovation. Copper fittings on old pipe or a chemical coating doesn't change the pipe either. In most cases, I have my clients walk away from poly-B unless we're getting a massive credit.

Before natural gas, homes here heated with oil from tanks buried in the yard. Homes built between the 1920s and the 1960s are the most likely to have one, and they are common in older areas like Kitsilano, Kerrisdale, Dunbar and parts of East Vancouver. On any older detached home, ask whether a scan has been done and look at the certificate. If a tank was removed, there should be paper for that too.

No certificate? A scan costs little next to what it can find. Watch for dead patches in the yard, a petroleum smell in the basement, and fill or vent pipes sticking out of the ground. If you don't have the right clause in your contract and a tank turns up after you buy, it's yours to fix. If oil has leached into the soil, that soil has to go, even if it travelled into your neighbour's yard. BC's Environmental Management Act can put that on the current owner, so talk to your lawyer about the clause before you write.

This is the one people get most wrong. Forget the furnace duct for a second. Look at the mud on every drywall seam, floor tile and its adhesive, textured ceilings, and vermiculite in the attic. Left undisturbed inside a wall you never open, it isn't doing anything to anybody. You can own a pre-1990 house for 20 years and never spend a dollar on it. It doesn't change what the home is worth to live in. It changes what it costs to change.

WorkSafeBC requires a hazardous materials survey before renovation or demolition on a pre-1990 building, and in the City of Vancouver that comes before your building permit. Since January 1, 2024, only licensed contractors with certified workers can do the abatement in BC (Province of BC). I've done abatement work, and it's nasty: full suits, taped seams, containment. Your neighbours will see it, so quietly taking out a wall on a Saturday tends to end in a stop work order. Ask the seller if a survey has ever been done, and ask for the document.

Parts of Vancouver sit on old peat bog, particularly in the east and south of the city. I live in the Fraser area, and around 20th just off Fraser you'll see natural speed bumps in the road, sidewalks peaking and homes sagging. It's not the tree roots. The ground is settling. The City of Vancouver has a preliminary map, so check it before you write. If you plan to build, soft ground can mean piles down to something stable, which is a very big number to discover after you own the lot.