Get the Lead Out

Alert:  Lead-free legislation goes into affect nationwide on January 1, 2014.

I'm not a plumber, why should I care?  Well, it will affect the way materials are manufactured, which means the cost of those materials will go up which means the cost of doing business goes up along with your next plumbing bill.

Effective the first of January (Although some states preemptively adopted this legislature in recent years), any product designed, manufactured, bought, sold and installed  for drinking water has to contain no more than .25% lead.  This has revamped the majority of our industry.  Most of you are familiar with brass products being a large component of your plumbing system. Raw brass, on its own, is too brittle to make into faucetry, valves, etc.  Small amounts of lead were introduced into the manufacturing process to allow brass to be molded into the parts we use everyday.

With the impending lead-free legislation, those fittings will no longer be legal.  Manufacturers have gone about reducing the lead content in many ways.  Just the R & D is exorbitantly expensive.  Some have begun adding bismuth instead of lead, some are going non-metallic, a mix of both, and even 'highly secret' but approved methods of 'getting the lead out'.  If the research was expensive, imagine manufacturing costs after revamping formulas, machinery, even labeling and packaging, as the guidelines are very specific in how materials must be identified as 'lead-free'.

You knew I had an ulterior motive in this post. Yes, it's the forewarning that hard costs are going to rise. Material costs on lead-free items have risen 11%-20% already.  This includes most faucets, isolation valves, safety valves, and any other parts that eventually have a hand in bringing water to your sinks.

Still not being completely lead-free (although we've been slowly making the transition for about a year), we've been trying to hold the additional costs down where we can. Come January, that will no longer be an option.

Those of you guys that know us know we won't compromise quality for a cheaper price-tag. We aren't going to start stocking cheaply made non-metallic (plastic) faucets. As a matter of fact, our stocking manufacturer, Wolverine Brass, has been shipping us low-lead compliant faucets for the past year.  The benefit for us is one less toxic element that we are exposed to in our day-to-day. Years ago, our industry made huge strides toward lead-free plumbing.  No lead in solders, fluxes, water lines (Yes, up north, they actually have lead water mains!), etc.  Tomorrow's legislation clinches the deal, at least in regard to plumbing.

Another positive factor in this are the gains in domestic manufacturing. With the certifications necessary to prove that products are lead-free, import products should see a drop in popularity. Even across our manufacturers with overseas plants, the lead-free divisions are here in the U.S. We always try to use American made products whenever possible.