You don't need x-ray vision to know what plumbing your house runs on — the era it was built, plus five minutes with a flashlight at the water heater and under a sink, usually tells the story. Here's the field guide, and what each answer means for you.
Galvanized steel (common before the 1960s, lingering long after). Gray metal pipe with threaded joints; a magnet sticks to it. Galvanized rusts from the INSIDE, narrowing for decades until the whole house shares a garden hose's worth of pressure. Rusty morning water and pressure that fades when two fixtures run are its signatures — we see it across Munford's and Bartlett's older streets. One failing section is usually a preview, not an exception.
Copper (roughly 1960s–2000s). The penny-colored standard, joined with silvery soldered fittings. Mostly excellent and long-lived. Watchpoints: green-white crust at joints (slow weeping) and pinhole leaks in older soft copper. No panic — just worth eyes on it during any service visit.
Polybutylene (late 1970s–mid 1990s) — the one to actually check for. Usually gray flexible plastic (sometimes blue outdoors), often with metal crimp rings, stamped "PB" along the line. It had a well-documented habit of failing at fittings without warning, enough that some insurers still ask about it by name on applications. Plenty of Bartlett-era homes carried it. If you find PB, you don't have to panic — but you do want a plan, and your insurance paperwork wants accuracy.
PEX (2000s to today). Flexible tubing in red, blue, or white, connected with crimp or expansion fittings. It's what we repipe INTO: freeze-tolerant flexing, fewer joints in walls, quiet. CPVC (cream-colored rigid plastic) shows up in some builds too and mostly minds its manners, though it gets brittle with age.
Where to look: the connections on top of your water heater, under kitchen and bath sinks, and — if you're willing — along the crawlspace ceiling, where the whole system runs exposed.
Why it matters: pressure complaints, recurring small leaks, insurance and resale questions, and renovation planning all start with this one fact. If the flashlight tour raises questions — especially if you spot gray plastic or rusty threads — we'll give you the honest read on repair versus repipe, priced before anything starts: (901) 699-7763.
