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Hi. Have you had any problems with osmagold pipe fittings? If so it would be great to hear from you.

Here's my experience of Osmagold.
A year ago I experienced a major pipe failure in a 1st floor apartment. When I investigated, I found that a push fit elbow had failed in a ceiling void allowing mains pressure water to escape for 1/2 hour. The result was messy and expensive.
What I found was that the outer metal retaining ring of the push fit connector had split in several places around it allowing the water pressure to release the pipe from the fitting. In simple terms it was a case of metal fatigue. Photos attached.
After some research I found that the fitting was made by Wavin and called Osmagold. The fittings were made around the year 2000 but most importantly these fittings had a 50 year guarantee. They also had a history of failing and Wavin changed the design in 2001.
A further survey of the apartment found four more pipe fittings that showed the same cracks in the outer casing.
As a result Osma paid out a lot of money to remove all the osmagold fittings in the apartment, replace it with copper and repair the damage to two apartments.
Moving forward a year and there has been another serious leak in another 1st floor apartment. The same problem has occurred again.
Wavin say this is a rare problem but I'm not so sure. I've found 12 connector fails so far so it hardly rare.
There are 21 apartments in the block, all with Osmagold pipework. I'm now looking for Wavin to replace the pipework throughout the block.

So here's my plea to all plumbers out there, have you had any experience of Osmagold failures and if so can you share the details of it.
 

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Not had the copper ring split but many a time you look at them and they leak
 

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Looks like I dodged a bullet house I owned and moved out of 12 years ago was fully plumbed in osma gold lived there for 7 years so was converted 20/21 years ago
 
Its time to play them at their game.
Take a million photo's and the call them.

Get Wavin out to look at the installation and see what they say.

General line will be, " It must be an installation fault because we haven't had many issues with this product"

Play dumb, get everything in writing and get Wavin to fall on their sword.

They supplied a 50 year warranty, so get them to honor it by whatever means.
 
Its time to play them at their game.
Take a million photo's and the call them.

Get Wavin out to look at the installation and see what they say.

General line will be, " It must be an installation fault because we haven't had many issues with this product"

Play dumb, get everything in writing and get Wavin to fall on their sword.

They supplied a 50 year warranty, so get them to honor it by whatever means.

Didnt realise they had a 50 year warranty.
 
To be fair to Wavin, they have honoured their guarantee so far and replaced the Osmagold plumbing in 3 apartments and refurbished those apartments that suffered water damage as a consequence of the component failures.
However they won't replace the plumbing on the remaining 18 apartments in the block until each suffers a major leak.

There must be thousands of Osmagold fittings installed between '99 and '01, the period when they had faulty retaining rings. I want to hear of any other failures as evidence of a widespread problem, so I can get the plumbing in the 28 apartments replaced now.
 
However they won't replace the plumbing on the remaining 18 apartments in the block until each suffers a major leak.
Many (most? almost all?) warranty schemes have a cap on liability that shuts the scheme down if too many claims are made. So, don't count on the costs of future problems being covered by Wavin.

You might want to consider 'real time leak detection and shutoff' valves if replumbing is not an option in the short term. It's a long shot but it might be worth asking the Wavin scheme to cover the costs.
 
Many (most? almost all?) warranty schemes have a cap on liability that shuts the scheme down if too many claims are made. So, don't count on the costs of future problems being covered by Wavin.

You might want to consider 'real time leak detection and shutoff' valves if replumbing is not an option in the short term. It's a long shot but it might be worth asking the Wavin scheme to cover the costs.
Great advice. Thanks, I'll look into the valves idea 👍🏻
 
To be fair to Wavin, they have honoured their guarantee so far and replaced the Osmagold plumbing in 3 apartments and refurbished those apartments that suffered water damage as a consequence of the component failures.
However they won't replace the plumbing on the remaining 18 apartments in the block until each suffers a major leak.

There must be thousands of Osmagold fittings installed between '99 and '01, the period when they had faulty retaining rings. I want to hear of any other failures as evidence of a widespread problem, so I can get the plumbing in the 28 apartments replaced now.

Hi Rob, I am having issues currently with Osmagold in my house and I was very pleased to find your post via Google.

I had a failure last year which I just put down to a one off, but this time around I have another leak and all three fittings attached to a t piece are showing signs of the metal fatigue you describe. Similar fittings are unfortunately all over my house! I would love to know who you have spoken to at Wavin/Osma so I can look into what recompense is available for me. Any reply appreciated, or if you wouldn't mind pming your number a chat at some point would also be very helpful.

Last year's issue:

IMG-20210521-102945-238-2.jpg

This year's issue:


IMG_20220315_184042_744.jpg


IMG_20220317_101444_463.jpg

IMG_20220317_101453_685.jpg

IMG_20220317_101510_784.jpg

Many thanks

Chris
 
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I installed all Osama gold fittings for the whole water system and the heating system in my house in 2009.apart from 1 leak (my fault as I forgot to put the insert in) I have had not one problem! I love the fittings, they work well and look great.
 

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