HICKORY HILL PLUMBING IN SEFFNER: 181 HOUSES, ONE POLYBUTYLENE QUESTION

Is There Gray Pipe Behind Hickory Hill's Walls?

Hickory Hill is two county plats near E Old Hillsborough Ave and Penn National Rd. Phase One has 98 houses, 95 of them built from 1985 to 1988; Phase Two has 83, median year 1990. Lots are about a third of an acre and the median house is 2,295 square feet in Phase One and 2,394 in Phase Two, with four bedrooms typical of the second phase.

That build window overlaps the years, roughly 1978 to 1995, when builders used polybutylene supply pipe, a gray plastic whose failures cluster at the fittings. A house here may or may not have it; the pipe in the wall decides. County water mains nearby are mostly PVC, so rusty water or weak pressure usually points to the house side.

Telling Polybutylene From Everything Else

Polybutylene is gray, sometimes off-white, flexible and joined with plastic or metal crimp fittings. Failures concentrate at the plastic acetal fittings. Look where the pipe meets the water heater, the main shut-off and the valves under the sinks, and photograph what you find; copper is brown, CPVC cream and PEX red, blue or white.

If it is there and has never leaked, you do not have to repipe. If it is weeping at fittings, or pinholes keep coming back, a PEX repipe runs $4,500 to $12,000, and our cost guide shows how that price is built. Whole-house repiping in the county is a plumbing-final inspected job.

How We Work Through a Hickory Hill House

Identify the pipe, then decide what each service is worth.

• Emergency Plumbing Repairs — A failed crimp fitting on gray supply pipe is a flood-in-minutes event, so we carry shut-offs and fittings and close the main first.
• Plumbing Repairs — Original stops and 35-year-old cartridges are the routine tickets, and a pipe check comes with each one.
• Plumbing Installation — Four-bedroom houses with more bathrooms need fixtures tied into longer supply runs, which the quote spells out.
• Leak Detection — Larger slabs mean more pipe under concrete, so we isolate zones with the meter before using any listening gear.
• Water Heater Repair & Replacement — A 1986 house is on its second or third tank, and hot-water demand from a 2,300-square-foot home guides sizing.
• Repiping (PEX) — This plat is where repiping is most often asked about, and we answer only with the pipe in view.
• Drain Cleaning & Hydro Jetting — The county map does not show this plat's own mains, so we ask sewer or septic before any cable goes in.

Big Lots, Long Runs and a Sewer Map With Gaps

On third-of-an-acre lots, supply and drain runs are longer than in the compact plats nearby and the houses carry more fixtures: more places for a stop to weep and more feet of slab to trace. Elevation is about 54 feet on well-drained Gainesville sand in FEMA Zone X, so leaks here are pipe problems, not groundwater. The low-pressure diagnosis order separates a weak fixture from a weak house.

The county's online sewer layer shows only two segments around this plat and none of its own laterals. That is a gap in the data, and one listing even reports sewer connected. Treat sewer or septic as a per-address question and check your bill, as we advise anywhere in ZIP 33584.

Hickory Hill's Two Phases and the Plats Around Penn National Road

Hickory Hill is one deed-restricted subdivision in two county plats, and the older plats around it span five decades.

• Hickory Hill Phase One — 98 single-family lots, 95 of them built 1985-1988 (median 1986), on lots of about a third of an acre.
• Hickory Hill Phase Two — 83 homes built 1988-2009, with 53 in 1988-1991 and a median of 1990, so the second phase is slightly newer than the first.
• Old Hillsborough Estates — A neighboring 39-home plat built 1986-1988, which is the same building window as Hickory Hill Phase One.
• Winston Manor — 57 parcels built 2004-2005 with county sewer recorded in December 2003, the newest of the plats adjoining Hickory Hill.
• Hickory Lakes Manor — A 1991-2000 plat with a core median of 1993, built after the polybutylene supply-pipe era had faded.
• Shangri La II (Phases One and Two) — Houses dated 1974-1983, so these homes are close to a decade older than Hickory Hill's first houses.
• King's Row (Unit 1) — Homes built 1960-1981 with a 1970 median, the oldest plat in the immediate surroundings of Hickory Hill.
• Thousand Oaks Executive Estates — A small plat with houses built 1984-1986, a couple of years before Hickory Hill Phase One went up.
• Darby Lake — Small newer infill built 2008-2021, the youngest housing near Hickory Hill, in single homes rather than large phases.

Hickory Hill's Racetrack-Themed Streets and the Schools and Parks Nearby

The neighborhood's own street names and a handful of county sites within a mile or two make it easy to place a Hickory Hill address.

• Penn National Rd and Sportsman Park Dr — Streets inside Hickory Hill with racetrack-themed names, along with Covington Park St, Preakness Pl and Caulder Park Rd.
• E Old Hillsborough Ave and Gay Rd — The two roads that border the neighborhood on the county map.
• Burnett Middle School — Gordon Burnett Middle School, 1010 N Kingsway Rd, is the nearest middle school, at about three-quarters of a mile.
• Higginbotham Park — A county park along the N Kingsway corridor, just under a mile from the plat center.
• Lake Weeks boat ramp — The free public ramp is 0.79 miles away, the nearest launch for anyone in Hickory Hill with a boat.
• Fire Station 4 — A Hillsborough County Fire Rescue station on E US 92, 1.72 miles north of the plat.
• Seffner Community Park and Gardens — The 24.64-acre county park is about two-thirds of a mile from Hickory Hill, next to the library.

Hickory Hill 1985-1988 Houses: Pipe Era, Lot Size and Main Records

Hickory Hill is one of the few Seffner plats where parcel data pins down both the year and the size of nearly every house.

• 95 of Hickory Hill Phase One's 98 homes (96.9%) were built between 1985 and 1988, and Phase Two has a median of 1990. Polybutylene supply pipe was installed in houses from about 1978 to 1995, so supply-line material is the first question on a repair here.
• Phase One lots measure about 0.34 acres, with a median of 2,295 square feet of heated space; Phase Two's median is 2,394 square feet. Larger houses on wide lots mean longer supply and drain runs and more fixtures per home than the compact plats nearby.
• County water-main records in a box of about half a mile around the plat show 118 segments, 115 of them PVC and 3 asbestos-cement, installed between 1973 and 2017. The street mains are mostly PVC, so low pressure or discolored water usually points to the house side of the meter.
• The county sewer layer holds only two gravity segments in that same box, both from Winston Manor in December 2003. The plat's own sewer lines are not in the county layer, and older plats are often incompletely mapped, so connection details should be confirmed by address.
• The plat sits at 54.4 feet in FEMA Zone X on well-drained Gainesville sand. No flood-zone rule applies to water heater placement here, so leaks are pipe or slab problems, not groundwater problems.
• Tract 121.06, which contains Hickory Hill, is 90.4% owner-occupied, with 1,738 of 1,922 occupied homes owned. Nearly every call is a homeowner deciding on a repipe or a replacement heater, rather than a landlord.

Hickory Hill Questions: Gray Pipe, Heaters, Septic Maps and Slabs

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