Market share for copper plumbing has increased from 31 percent in 2004 to 36 percent in 2006. This is one of the findings from a survey of Australia’s largest 680 building companies conducted by the Housing Industry Association.

Commissioned by the Copper Development Centre, the survey follows on from similar ones conducted in 2001 and 2004. Its aims were to assess the current usage of different plumbing materials in newly constructed homes.

The survey shows that 2005/06 has been a difficult year for the home building industry. Higher interest rates and land prices triggered a cyclical slowdown across the eastern seaboard, fundamentally changing the mix of home building across metro and regional Australia.

This increasing proportion of homes being built outside of capital cities has seen larger volume builders lose market share, which had had a positive impact on the use of copper plumbing for water in new homes, while at the same time having a negative effect on plumbing for gas supply.

Builders consider that copper’s quality and reliability are of greater value now than in previous surveys. In 2004, 62 percent of the sample said that copper was more reliable; this has now jumped to 78 percent in the 2006 survey.

There was a significant increase in the number of breakdowns in plastic plumbing over the period 2004 to 2006, with 2,990 homes reportedly having problems compared to 1,413 in 2004. This sees a more than double increase in the rate of breakdowns from 1.4 to 3.3 percent.

Over the same period, the incidence of breakdowns in copper plumbing has declined. The rate of failure in copper plumbing now sits at a low 0.4 percent of homes compared to 1.6 percent in 2004.

Outlined above are just a few of the survey results. For a comprehensive overview of the findings, refer to the full report “Attitudes to the Use of Copper Plumbing” (contact the Copper Development Centre on 02 9380 2000).