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Did Your KITEC Replumb Decision Miss the Mark?
Is it fair to blame the homeowner for making a bad plumbing decision?
NEWLY REVISED, plus an Addendum
Many Phase 1 homeowners are at increased risk of dezincification in their replumbing efforts simply because the homeowner was unaware of what was needed to bring about a proper repair. Admittedly, it is difficult to know how many of the 3,000 Phase 1 KITEC repaired homes were not plumbed properly. My guesstimate is about 85% of all Phase 1 homes were not replumbed properly. While some homeowners are likely to blame for their ill-considered replumb decisions, the real blame for so many improper replumbs lies with the Favil West and Mike Dixon boards. Together, those two 2007 boards that could have done much to help the 3,000 unit owners who were in search of what constituted a proper repair. Without such help, homeowners were hopelessly left to fail.
While it’s true the homeowner accepted the risk of getting it right, that risk was not of their choosing. Pulte provided homeowners with no real option—either money from Pulte or money from the class action to figure out what to do, or make no repair at all and suffer the known consequences of rapid dezincification. Sadly, very few homeowners had the knowhow or the resources to make the correct replumb decision. Unlike the 4,000 homes in Phase 2 where Pulte assumed responsibility and liability for a complete repair of ceiling installed REHAU and WIRSBO PEX plumbing systems, Phase 1 homeowners were left to guess on how best to proceed with their KITEC replumb efforts. Such guessing was typically limited by Pulte’s cash offer of $7,800 and the willingness of a plumbing contractor, initially American Leak Detection, to perform the work for that amount. Some contractors did the work for less while others asked for more depending on an array of factors.
That Pulte could have offered Phase 1 homeowners a repair protocol along with their $7,800 check was demonstrated five months later when Pulte published such a protocol when Phase 2 REHAU-plumbed homes were being scheduled for repair. Although it would have helped Phase 1 homeowners immeasurably, Pulte decided not to share their repair protocol with those homeowners. Let those homeowners fail even though they were obliged by circumstances beyond their control to accept the risk. But surely the Mike Dixon board would step up in a timely manner and help the hapless homeowner make that critical decision. How could the Dixon board have helped?
Since Phase 1 homeowners were in the midst of making their replumb decision when Pulte published their REHAU protocol in 2007, it would have been desirable if not a logical step for the Mike Dixon board to republish that protocol for the benefit of the homeowners whose interests they ostensibly served. But that did not happen at the time, when it could have had a positive and significant impact on those replumb decisions, or at anytime thereafter.
After all, the prior board had already published Pulte’s Q & A on KITEC, so why not publish Pulte’s repair protocol since virtually all of the dezincification issues that were addressed for REHAU also applied to the KITEC replumb efforts. At least the widows, the more elderly and the many others who were least prepared to deal with such a serious plumbing matter could have been helped in this manner. But no such help was forthcoming from the association.
Looking only at those likely homeowners who either adopted Pulte’s repair protocol because they were concerned enough to do so or who adopted an acceptable alternative, such as all copper, who were few in number because of the additional expense, I believe that not more than 500 homeowners, likely many fewer, made the correct replumb decision, whether they chose Wirsbo, Vanguard, or Zurn PEX or all copper. The other 2,500 homeowners did something less than what Pulte’s protocol called for to remediate the dezincification problems associated with the presence of yellow brass fittings and connections. Some homeowners took the money and made no repair at all. Others did what they thought was OK but without the assurance of doing what Pulte would have done had Pulte performed the repair, based on Pulte's subsequent decision to published repair protocols for REHAU and WIRSBO plumbing systems in Phase 2 homes.
How effective the replumb turned out will depend on the extent to which the presence of yellow brass was eliminated in the replumb effort. Technically speaking, all the dezincified-resistant C314 bronze fittings will do the homeowner little good if no attention was paid to eliminating the other yellow brass couplings and joints throughout the plumbing system. In the end, the homeowner will be hostage to the weakest high zinc yellow brass metal that inhabits their plumbing system. A miserable guesstimate of 15% effective repair rate for Phase 1 homes is disappointing when measured against a 100% effective repair rate for all 4,000 Phase 2 homes.
The greatest risk to home and property will be those homeowners whose replumb contractors used WIRSBO’s C360 yellow brass fittings, fittings that Pulte had removed in WIRSBO plumbed Phase 2 homes, in the attic since an attic leak can prove devastating as one homeowner sadly learned. A Canyon Crest Village homeowner whose home had been replumbed learned while she was away that a ceiling leak had resulted in extensive mold and water damage throughout the home, necessitating many months of renovation along with the complete removal and replacement of all flooring and drywall while mold remediation proceeded.
Many homeowners could have made better repair decisions if only they had been given relevant information about the availability new dezincified WIRSBO fittings and the existence of Pulte's repair protocols. Both the developer and your board’s officers could have fixed those omissions. While the developer did provide their repair protocol to affected Phase 2 homeowners, no similar effort was made to inform Phase 1 homeowners, presumably on the basis that Pulte had opted under the construction defect Chapter 40 statute not to make a repair.
Insofar as the boards were concerned, Phase 1 homeowners were not provided with information about the delay in the availability of WIRSBO's the new C314 fitting or about what Pulte regarded as a repair protocol. While such information could have helped homeowners in their decision-making efforts, such information was not universally made available to Phase 1 homeowners, at least not by Pulte or the board. As a result, most Phase 1 homeowners were denied the help that was readily available in early 2007 that could have assisted them in their decision-making efforts. While the unknowing homeowner cannot be compelled to do the right thing, at least such homeowners could have been informed of available information about key replumbing developments that could have assisted homeowners in making an informed replumb decision.
Ron Johnson, 10 July 2011, Rev.
Addendum.
My old mentor Favil West has written to remind me that the board had been cautioned by association legal counsel from getting involved in Pulte's class action/KITEC endeavors following a 2006 Chapter 40 construction defect claim by Class Counsel on behalf of affected Sun City Anthem homeowners. Without more detailed information on the specifics of such association legal advice, it is difficult to understand just how the board felt constrained by such legal advice and in particular from helping Phase 1 homeowners who were faced with the need to replumb their KITEC plumbing system.
But did anyone, let alone seven individual board members, fully comprehend what was meant or intended by not getting involved insofar as the class action litigation and Pulte's KITEC decisions were concerned. Further, there are a number of unanswered questions about what not "getting involved" actually entailed.
For example, was the board prohibited from one or more of the following acts, and if so, why?
Clearly, taking legal action or challenging Pulte's KITEC decisions might be acts that the board may wish to steer clear of. But why on earth would the board want to avoid providing repair related information to Phase 1 homeowners if such information could possibly assist such homeowners in making a better or informed replumb decision? Was it really in the association's interest to keep all of the John and Jane Doe homeowners in the dark about their replumbing efforts?
One can readily understand why it might not be desirable for the association to advise homeowners to join the class action suit, or not, or to refuse Pulte's cash settlement offer, or to take some other type of "getting involved" action with Pulte. On the other hand, helping out the uninformed homeowner in their replumb decision-making process with factual repair-related information should have been a no-brainer for the board to make. Providing the homeowner with such information is not akin to advising the homeowner to take any type of action that could under any circumstances be regarded as "getting involved" with Pulte's class action response to Phase 1 homeowners.
We know that the Favil West and Mike Dixon boards did nothing to keep the affected homeowners better informed. Informed, that is, with information about the availability of the new WIRSBO dezincified C314 fittings or about what consisted of a proper repair based on then available published protocols for homeowners who chose to install a flexible PEX plumbing system. In the later case, it is difficult to understand why the Mike Dixon board did not provide Pulte's repair protocol to Phase 1 homeowners. I know of no reasonable explanation that could support such a decision, unless it was simple inattention to this need. To suggest that such an omission was based on association counsel's legal advice does not make any sense.
Ron Johnson, 15 July 2011