Lead pipes and drinking water
The kitchen tap is fed from the loft header tank, not from the rising main. Why does that arrangement change what a lead-pipe worry even refers to?
Because the kitchen tap is fed from the loft header tank, a lead-pipe worry about that tap is not a worry about the rising main. The water you draw there has come from stored water, not straight off the main at the sink. Any lead question has to name the pipe that actually feeds the tank, the tank itself, and the pipe down to the tap. The rising main is a different pipe. The survey must not treat them as one length.
Last reviewed 24 October 2026. Written for buyers in England and Wales unless this answer says otherwise. No named surveyor has signed this page. It is general guidance, not a report on your house, and not legal advice.
What is the fuller explanation?
In many houses the kitchen cold tap is taken from the rising main. This house is arranged the other way. The tap is on the header tank, so looking only for lead on a main under the sink answers a pipe that does not supply that tap. The Drinking Water Inspectorate still points a suspected-lead test at the kitchen tap. The result would describe the water from this arrangement, not magically test a main the tap is not using.
Ask the surveyor to trace, as far as sight allows, the feed into the header tank and the drop to the kitchen tap, and to say separately whether any rising main was visible. Write those as different pipes. Do not collapse them into a single 'no lead' or 'lead present' line. If a test is needed, ask the water company to test the kitchen tap and tell them the tap is tank-fed. The home survey has not sampled that water.
What should you ask your surveyor?
- Which pipes feed the header tank, as far as you could see them?
- Did you see the rising main at all, and is it separate from this tap?
- Should a water test be read as a test of the tank-fed tap, not of a main?
What are the typical next steps?
- Write the header-tank feed to the kitchen tap as its own pipe.
- Do not describe that tap as if it were the rising main.
- Tell the water company the tap is tank-fed if they test it.
Costs vary with the building and with who you instruct. Where this page does not cite a published figure, ask the surveyor, a relevant specialist, or your solicitor for a written quote. Do not treat a forum average as the price.
Also asked about this
If the rising main is plastic, is the kitchen tap cleared of lead?
No. Plastic on the rising main does not describe the pipes from the header tank to the tap. Those are the pipes this tap actually uses.
Does a new tank in the loft end the question?
Not by itself. A new tank does not identify the pipework into it or down to the tap. Each length still needs its own note.