I am racking my brain over this, and I'm wondering if anyone else has been in this situation.

I have a water supply line for the small rental building which is on a slab, its a galvanized pipe. Its an older building, 1930 but solidly built.

A new shutoff valve for the building was put in about 12 years ago, above the original one which was not leaking, but had a broken handle. The new valve is a brass 90'. All well and good.

Except they used black iron fittings when they put the valve in, and should not have. The plumber who did it is gone.

Now the pipe is rusting, and has some sweating below the valve. There is a 2" section of pipe between the fittings that is now all covered in rust, and has standing sweat on it. Its not dripping yet, but I don't like it.

I've had some people say just seal it with silicone and leave it, but I want to change it out and have it done correctly because I fear galvanic corrosion, which in theory could be eating away at the pipe threads and lead to a break and flooding the apartments one day.

Here's where I talked to a number of plumbers and got estimates to fix this.

Some said they could do it no problem- the fittings are only 12 years old, and the slab has been tested then and was fine. If its galvanic corrosion, then the 2" section of pipe is the 'sacrifice', the spot that is taking the rust. They can take that out, we swap fittings with the right metal, and problem is solved.

But some plumbers talked about the pipe breaking off in the slab.

This would be a huge, expensive job, and they would stand to make a ton of money off it. Involving chiseling down into the concrete, using a borer, and on.

So what in the world is the incentive, for the plumber not to just break the pipe when changing the fittings, so they can land the big, lucrative job?

Whats even worse, is that plumbers have long wait lists in my town. I've been trying to call around just to get some other estimates from other plumbing companies IF the one I hire breaks the pipe off in the slab, just so I can at least not be stuck paying whatever they want to charge after getting their estimate and have options.

But all of them are scheduled out a week or more.

As a landlord, you're basically stuck with a building with no water, angry tenants refusing to pay rent, and no choice but to go with the company you hired, time and materials and pay whatever price they charge, or wait weeks for someone else.

How do people manage this? It seems like a complete trap, and for the life of me I can't see what I can do to avoid getting hit with a massive bill if they choose to break the pipe. I even called a plumber yesterday and said "what if?" and they just replied, we charge as much as it takes... we can't tell you until it happens..... and no your insurance won't pay for it AND we don't guarantee it won't leak afterwards.

WOW.

It looks like Im danned if I leave this, and I'm danned if I try and fix it. I certainly don't want to put a band aid on a water supply line, but I will be completely at the mercy of whoever I hire, basically a blank check.

I'm not sure what you do in this situation?