What to Expect During a Whole House Repiping

If you own a home that’s more than sixty years old, or suspect that you may have significant plumbing problems, you may be considering a full, whole-house repiping project. Deterioration and degradation can affect even the best plumbing jobs over time, creating the necessity for removal and replacement eventually. If you’ve had more than one pinhole leak over the course of a year, repiping your home may be a better choice than simple repairs of existing pipes.

What Does Repiping Entail?

To properly complete a full residential repiping job, a licensed plumber who specializes in such large jobs will need to remove all of the cold and hot water lines from your home or disable them, replacing them with new pipes through the interior of your walls and through the attic. For homes built on a slab with piping that runs under the concrete, a qualified plumber will install new pipes either through your attic or by digging around the outside of your home, but will not be able to remove the existing piping without causing severe structural damage.

How Long Does Repiping Take?

There is no hard and fast answer for how long a repiping project will take, because no two jobs are the same. However, most projects can be completed in as little as one day. Qualified plumbing contractors will make a point of completing the work as quickly as they possibly can, with minimal interruption. Looking for a plumbing contractor that will also repair and repaint damaged drywall will also help to speed things up, streamlining the entire process and eliminating the need to hire more than one contractor.

Call An Expert For Whole House Repiping

Whole house repiping is one of the biggest residential plumbing projects that homeowners face.  Most homeowners will never need a whole house repiping, but homes that were built with polybutylene pipes or have other plumbing issues may need to have all of their plumbing pipes replaced.  If you are one of the unfortunate homeowners facing a whole house repiping project, in most cases your best option is to have the job completed by a plumbing contractor who specializes in whole house repiping.

Millions of homes built during the from about 1975 to 1995 were plumbed with polybutylene piping.  At the time, polybutylene was believed to be an excellent choice for residential plumbing because it was easy to work with, relatively inexpensive, and seemed to be very durable.  Unfortunately it was later discovered that the chlorine found in most household drinking water caused polybutylene pipe to fail after a few years.

Replacing all of the defective pipe in your home is a big job that can require knocking holes into walls, floors, and ceilings.  The original piping may have been installed in the attic, under floors, and inside walls.  If your home was built on a slab, your plumbing probably runs under the slab and is routed up through the slab in various locations.

Most good plumbers can tackle a polybutylene pipe replacement, but it takes some experience to be able to replace all of the plumbing in a home with the least amount of damage to your walls, floors, and ceiling.   A plumber who specializes in whole house repiping will have years of repiping experience and will have developed techniques to get the job done as quickly as possible with the least amount of damage to your home.

Use a Specialist For Whole House Repiping

If you need to replace the water pipes in your home, you have a choice between using a general plumbing contractor or a repiping specialist for your plumbing replacement.  Some homes have serious plumbing issues that require all of the water distribution plumbing to be replaced.  The most common reason for a whole house repiping is because the home was plumbed with polybutylene pipes.

After polybutylene pipes were installed in millions of American homes built from the mid 1970’s to the mid1990’s, it was discovered chlorine in municipal water supplies reacted with the pipe led to pipe failures.  Polybutylene pipe was taken off the market, but many homeowners are still dealing with the after effects.

Most general plumbing contractors can handle a repiping, but you are probably better off hiring a plumber who specializes in commercial and residential repiping.  Replacing all of the pipes in your home involves locating and removing the original plumbing and installing new PVC, CPVC, PEX or copper pipes.

The original pipes can run through the basement, crawlspace, or attic and are often hidden in walls, ceilings and floors.  If the home was built on a concrete slab, the plumbing may run under the slab or be embedded in the concrete.

A residential repiping specialist who has handled hundreds or thousands of commercial and residential repipings will have developed techniques for replacing the piping with minimal damage to your home.  They will have a better feel for what type of replacement pipe works best and how to run the new piping if access to the old piping is limited.

In addition, in most cases holes have to be cut in walls, floors or ceilings and a repiping specialist may have contractors who can quickly and professionally make the necessary repairs.