If your home was built between 1995 and 2007, you could have Kitec plumbing without even knowing it. Here's how to find out before it becomes a flood.
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Most homeowners who have Kitec plumbing don’t know it. The pipes are tucked behind drywall, under sinks, and inside mechanical rooms, completely out of sight until the day something goes wrong. When Kitec fails, it doesn’t drip. It floods.
If your home was built or extensively remodeled between 1995 and 2007, there’s a real chance it was plumbed with Kitec. This guide will show you where to look, what to look for, and why it matters more now than it did ten years ago. By the end, you’ll know if you need to make a phone call.
The Sacramento region, including El Dorado Hills, Cameron Park, Roseville, Rocklin, Folsom, and Natomas, experienced one of the most intense residential construction booms in California history between the mid-1990s and the mid-2000s. Subdivisions went up fast. Builders needed materials that were affordable, flexible, and easy to install. Kitec checked every box.
What nobody knew at the time was that the brass fittings connecting those pipes had a fundamental flaw. The alloy used contained too much zinc, and when hot water, chlorine, or oxygen-rich water runs through a high-zinc brass fitting long enough, the zinc slowly leaches out. What’s left behind is a brittle, porous shell that looks intact right up until it gives way. That process is called dezincification, and it’s been happening silently inside walls and ceilings across El Dorado, Placer, and Sacramento Counties for the past two decades.
Homes built in 1995 are now nearly thirty years old. Kitec was recalled in 2005, roughly a decade after it became popular, because failures were already mounting. If your home is in that window and you’ve never had a plumber assess your pipes, this is worth an hour of your time.
You don’t need a plumber to do a first pass. Kitec has some very specific visual markers, and a quick walk through a few areas of your home can tell you a lot.
Start with the most accessible spots: under the kitchen sink, under bathroom vanities, and in the utility or mechanical room near your water heater. Kitec pipes are flexible, similar in feel to a garden hose, and they come in two distinct colors. The hot water lines are bright orange. The cold water lines are bright blue. Not rust-colored, not tan, not a muted shade. We’re talking vivid, unmistakable orange and blue. If you see those colors, look closer.
On the pipe itself, you’ll find a stamp. Kitec was sold under several brand names, so look for any of the following printed directly on the pipe: Kitec, KTC, IPEX, PlumbBetter, WarmRite, IPEX AQUA, AmbioComfort, XPA, or KERR Controls. You might also see the designation ASTM 1281, which is a specific standard that appears on Kitec piping and can help you confirm what you’re looking at. The fittings, which are the connectors where the pipe meets a valve or fixture, are brass. That’s another distinguishing detail, since modern PEX systems typically use crimp or clamp fittings that look quite different.
There’s one more place worth checking that most people overlook: your electrical panel. Some homes with Kitec have a yellow warning sticker that reads something like “Caution: This building has non-metallic interior water piping.” Not every home has this sticker, and its absence doesn’t mean you’re in the clear, but if it’s there, that’s a strong confirmation.
One thing to keep in mind is that Kitec is often confused with modern PEX piping because both are flexible plastic. The difference is the color, the brand stamps, and the brass fittings. Modern PEX is typically white, gray, or a more muted red and blue. If you’re not sure what you’re looking at, take a photo and send it to a licensed plumber before drawing any conclusions.
The most common misconception about Kitec is that if you’ve had it for fifteen or twenty years without a problem, you’re probably fine. That’s not how dezincification works. The damage accumulates over time in a way that’s completely invisible, meaning no discoloration, no warning drips, and no pressure changes you’d notice day to day. Then a fitting gives way, and water starts moving through your wall, your subfloor, or your ceiling.
Reduced water pressure is sometimes the first sign homeowners notice, and it’s easy to attribute to something else, like a municipal supply issue, a partially closed valve, or aging fixtures. But when the pressure drop is coming from internal pipe degradation, no amount of fixture replacement will fix it.
The other thing worth understanding is that spot repairs aren’t a real solution for Kitec. The failure mechanism isn’t isolated to one bad fitting, because the same material flaw exists in every fitting throughout the system. Kitec fittings aren’t even manufactured anymore, so there’s no like-for-like replacement available. When a Kitec system is confirmed, complete replacement is the only path forward that truly protects your home.
This matters especially in El Dorado, Placer, and Sacramento Counties because local conditions accelerate the problem. Hard water, which is common throughout this region, speeds up dezincification by increasing the mineral load that interacts with the brass fittings. Summer heat in the Sacramento Valley, where temperatures regularly push past 100°F, puts additional thermal stress on hot water lines. Homes here may be aging faster than Kitec homes in cooler, softer-water climates.
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Finding Kitec doesn’t mean you need to panic, but it does mean you need a plan. The first step is getting a licensed plumber to do a proper assessment. A visual check under your sinks is a starting point, but a full evaluation looks at the entire system, including areas you can’t easily access yourself.
From there, the conversation shifts to replacement. A full repipe sounds disruptive, but it doesn’t have to be. Done correctly, most homes can be repiped in a few days while you continue living in them normally. The work happens section by section, with access created through small, targeted openings rather than demolished walls.
This is one of the questions we hear most often from homeowners in El Dorado, Placer, and Sacramento Counties, and the short answer is yes, it can, and increasingly does. California insurers have become more aware of Kitec’s failure record, and some will restrict coverage or decline to renew policies when Kitec is identified in a home. If you’ve received a non-renewal notice or a premium increase without a clear explanation, it’s worth asking your insurer directly if your plumbing was flagged.
For homeowners in communities like El Dorado Hills, Granite Bay, or Rancho Cordova, where a significant portion of the housing stock was built during the Kitec era, this is a real and growing issue. Replacing the system and providing documentation to your insurer can resolve the coverage concern and, in some cases, bring premiums back down.
It’s also worth knowing that the class action settlement against Kitec’s manufacturer, IPEX Inc., resulted in a $125 million fund, with roughly $100 million designated specifically for repair and replacement of damaged homes. However, the filing deadline for that settlement has passed for most homeowners. Replacement is now an out-of-pocket cost, which makes getting ahead of a failure, rather than responding to one, the financially smarter move.
If you’re thinking about selling your home in the next few years, Kitec is the kind of discovery that surfaces during a home inspection and complicates a transaction fast. Buyers ask for price reductions, and some walk away entirely. Addressing it before you list removes that variable completely and protects the value you’ve built in your home.
A lot of homeowners put off calling about Kitec because they picture weeks of construction, a house they can’t live in, and walls torn down to the studs. That picture doesn’t match reality when the job is done right.
A proper Kitec repipe starts with a full assessment of your existing system, which involves mapping where the pipes run, identifying access points, and planning the replacement route. The goal is to remove every Kitec pipe and fitting and replace them with copper or PEX, both of which are durable, proven materials with long track records. Day one typically focuses on removing the defective system and beginning the new installation. Access is created through small, strategically placed openings instead of gutting entire walls. Water service to essential areas, like the kitchen and at least one bathroom, is restored each evening so you can go about your normal routine.
Most repipes in a standard single-family home are completed within a few days. Permits are required for this work in California jurisdictions, and a licensed contractor handles the permit process and coordinates the inspection so the completed work is documented, code-compliant, and on record when you eventually sell the home.
In El Dorado County specifically, homes in areas like Cameron Park and Shingle Springs sometimes present additional access challenges due to the region’s clay soil and the way older foundations interact with underground supply lines. Experience with local construction styles matters here. A plumber who’s been working in El Dorado, Placer, and Sacramento Counties for over two decades has seen those variables before and knows how to work around them efficiently.
The licensing piece is also worth mentioning: in California, any plumbing work over $500 legally requires a C-36 Plumbing Contractor License issued by the CSLB. You can verify a contractor’s license at cslb.ca.gov before anyone sets foot in your home. This isn’t a minor technicality because unlicensed work can void your homeowner’s insurance, and unpermitted work creates problems when you sell. Make sure whoever you hire is properly licensed, insured, and willing to pull permits.
If you’ve read this far, you either already know you have Kitec or you’re not quite sure. Either way, the next step is the same: get eyes on your system from someone who knows what they’re looking at and will tell you the truth about what they find.
The Sacramento region’s construction history means a lot of homes in El Dorado, Placer, and Sacramento Counties are in exactly this situation. El Dorado Hills, Folsom, Roseville, Rocklin, Lincoln, Natomas, Elk Grove, these communities were built during the Kitec window, and the pipes in those homes are getting older every year. The failure rate doesn’t go down with time.
We at Murray Plumbing have been working in El Dorado, Placer, and Sacramento Counties for over 24 years. We’re licensed, insured, and available around the clock for situations that can’t wait. If you want a straight answer about what’s in your walls and what it would take to fix it, reach out to us and we’ll get back to you the same day.
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