Plumber in Greenpoint, Brooklyn

Full-service plumbing for homes, two-families and multi-family buildings across Brooklyn and Queens. Supply lines, waste lines, valves, fixtures and everything in between.

Greenpoint is one of Brooklyn's oldest intact residential neighborhoods, with the historic district's contributing buildings dated between 1850 and 1900 — two- and three-story wood-frame and brick Italianate row houses built to house workers in the shipyards, rope factories, and lumber yards along the East River. A second ring of brick walk-up tenements and apartment buildings followed from the 1900s through the 1920s. Buildings in this range carry the standard pre-war package: galvanized steel supply lines now well past their 40–70 year lifespan, cast-iron DWV stacks, and steam heat systems where the boiler, piping, and radiators date to original installation. The 2005 rezoning added modern condo construction, but the core residential blocks remain overwhelmingly pre-war.

How serious is galvanized pipe corrosion in a Greenpoint 1900s tenement?

The brick walk-up tenements built in Greenpoint in the 1900s-1920s were plumbed with galvanized steel supply lines that are now between 70 and over 100 years old — well past the 40-70 year functional lifespan typical of galvanized in New York City's water chemistry. Internal corrosion in these pipes narrows the bore progressively, reducing flow and pressure at upper-floor fixtures while also introducing iron and manganese into the water supply. In a Greenpoint tenement we regularly find galvanized risers so restricted that only a fraction of the original flow reaches the third or fourth floor. The appropriate response in most cases is full building repiping in copper or PEX rather than targeted section replacement, because every section of galvanized in a building of this age is compromised — replacing one section relieves pressure on the next weakest point and shifts the leak location rather than solving the problem.

What type of drain stack is typical in a Greenpoint 1870s Italianate row house?

The original Italianate row houses built in Greenpoint from the 1850s through 1870s for shipyard and factory workers were constructed before modern plumbing codes existed, and the earliest buildings had minimal interior plumbing — drainage was added incrementally as city sewer connections became available. Cast-iron hub-and-spigot drain, waste, and vent systems were installed as these row houses were connected to the sewer network, and in many Greenpoint row houses you find cast-iron drain stacks from the 1880s and 1890s that have never been replaced. The two- and three-story scale of these buildings means the stacks are shorter and more accessible than those in six-story tenements, but the age of the iron and the condition of the lead-packed hub joints is the concern. Camera inspection through a cleanout is the fastest way to assess whether a Greenpoint row house drain stack is still structurally sound or approaching failure.

Is PEX or copper better for repiping a Greenpoint pre-war walk-up building?

In Greenpoint pre-war tenements and Italianate row houses where we are repiping from original galvanized supply, both copper and PEX are significant upgrades, but each has trade-offs in these specific buildings. Copper is the traditional choice and has a proven multi-decade track record in NYC buildings; it is required by some building owners and co-op boards as the only acceptable material. PEX is flexible and can be run through existing chases with fewer wall openings, which is an important consideration in Greenpoint's 1850-1920s buildings with lime-plaster walls on lath that are expensive to restore. PEX-A with expansion fittings is the most robust PEX variant for NYC building conditions and is now widely accepted by the NYC Plumbing Code. We discuss both options with each building owner given their specific layout, access constraints, and finishing requirements.