One gray pipe behind millions of walls has quietly been ticking toward failure for decades.

If your house went up in the 1980s, the most expensive thing hiding behind the drywall may not be knob‑and‑tube wiring or asbestos tile, but a gray plastic pipe that looked like the future when ...

Q: Our home has polybutylene water pipes and we’re afraid this will prevent us from selling the property. We’ve never had any plumbing problems, but our neighbors have had several major leaks. Do you ...