Re-pipe entire house?
 

I just found a hot water pipe leak under the slab of my house. It's the third leak in two years. I fixed the other two myself but I'm getting tired of that.
I figure it's time to bite the bullet and either re-pipe the house or go with one of those systems that coats all the existing pipes with epoxy (no holes in walls).

Any experiences?
House is 3 bedroom 2 bath and was built in 1969. Any guesses what the cost will be?
Tanks.

Can you use pvc pipe in your area? If so, just plumb your fixtures from outside by removing siding and drilling holes for the pipe through the wall studs or even bury them along the house and run them up at a central location at bathroom, kitchen, etc. If you can open a glue can and push two fittings together you can handle pvc pipe. This is the cheapest fix, sometimes it begins as a temporary patch, but ends up staying because there is no problem, and if there was you could easilly access the pipes to repair them. Good luck.

Replumbed entire house two years ago due to sub-slab leaks here in Vegas. (historic distict - 43 year old house, any where else this is new construction). Plumber used Wirsbo Aquapex, a translucent plastic tubing that is "uncoiled" and much easier to work with than traditional copper pipe. Apparently has been in use in Europe for decades with "billions" of feet of plumbing installed. Very pleased with results. Reduced pipe noise, quicker hot water to faucets. Seems to be a great product.


JP

What will the City of Orange permit? Do a permit if you ever want to sell. I'm guessing you have galvenized based on the year of the house. Look at the underslab versus overhead piping. When my house was repiped the underslab was abandoned and pulling the overhead piping out and using the same holes to fish new copper was not difficult. If you use copper consider the "K" commercial grade, don't use the really cheap stuff. Pick up a piece of the three grades at Home Depot and heft it and you'll see the difference.

Ouch, do you actually have to cut the slab to get at the piping? If so, that's a terrible design. Piping conduits are your friend for under-slab applications. If the monkeys that built the place actually laid down the pipe and poured the slab on top of it, there isn't much you can do short of abandoning the pipe and re-routing the lines or saw-cutting. If you decide to saw-cut the slab (dicey proposition), you could always add conduits for any new piping before re-pouring the portion of the slab, but at that point you're into the job for thousands - not to mention that cutting the reinforcing on an existing slab is never a great idea and should be avoided if at all possible. It's unlikely your slab is acting as a structural diapragm or anything, but it's still never a great idea and should involve consultation with an engineer or architect.

Flexible piping like PVC or thermoplastic is a good idea in an area like this because of seismic considerations (rigid metal piping will tend to spring leaks easier in a quake). PVC is a decent choice (if permitted) as it tends to have a bit more "give" to it - it's more flexible. If you use PVC, make sure they use a "tracer wire" on the piping so you (or the next guy) can find it 15 years from now. It's kind of hard to find PVC pipe with a metal detector.

I'm not sure how good the spray-on type "fix-it" stuff holds up over time. It might be good or it might just be a "band aid" type fix - I'm not terribly familiar with it (I can do some checking). I suppose it can't hurt to try as a short-term fix, right? If it holds, it holds. What kind of piping do you have now anyway? Copper? Steel? It's hard to make any sort of recommendation without knowing exactly what you've got.

Same issue in my house. I re-piped during a remodel when I had all the plumbing walls open anyway. Ran the pipes through the attic with feeders down the walls.

JP and Zoanas, about how much did it cost? I'm trying to decide if I should have the house re-piped or keep fixing the leaks.

My house has copper piping that is about 4" under the slab. The last two times I had leaks I used my infra-red gun to locate the hot spots, then carefully dug out the grout and lifted the tiles around the hot spot. Then I rented an electric jack hammer (bosch of course) for $50 a day and jack-hammered a big hole. I dried out the system and soldered in a new section of copper pipe. total cost was around $75 per leak and 12 hours of hard labor. of course that price included beer.
Unfortunately the problem keeps coming back in different areas so I figure all the hot water pipes (and maybe the cold too) are ready to go.
I found very small pin hole leaks in the piping I cut out with green corrosion around the pin holes. I'm told that is typical in this area.
Here's a picture of the last time: http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1148009401.jpg

I was lucky that time because I only had to pull up two tiles. This leak is under the bathroom, about 10 feet away.

Here's the tool of choice and the floor before I cleaned everything up:
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1148009559.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1148009595.jpg

I think I've heard of this...the plumbing "pipe" is all swaged fittings, like hydraulic hose? If it freezes, the tubing merely expands, then shrinks back to shape with the thaw? My homebuilt in the 70's...plumbing is galvanzized 1/2" pipe, for the most part. So, I'm thinking that sooner or later, a complete redo will be due...I want to do it only once more in my life. So, what's best?

Go with the epoxy coating. A friend who owns a large plumbing company brought this technology over from Europe about 7 years ago. It has been used in Europe for nearly 25 years with great success. It costs less than 25% of a conventional repipe and can repair a 2" hole in a 4" pipe. I have a 50 year old building with 13 suites that is going to be done in the fall. They bring a compressor on-site, turn off the water, scope the pipes, blast air through the lines to dry them and then coat the inside of the pipe. This can be done by one guy in one day. The coating is very thin and doesn't significantly reduce the inside pipe diameter. It is totally non-invasive and is guaranteed for at least 10 years. Tenants aren't displaced and drywall is left intact.

The problem with the epoxy is cost. I was told it would be between $7500 and $8000 for my 3 bedroom 2 bath single story house.
I figure that is waaaaay too much money for one day's labor.
I have a guy coming over this afternoon to give me a firm quote, if it's in the same price range as I got on the phone I will say thank you and good day to him.

Where did you buy your tile at sammyg2 ? I have the exact same tile in my house.

IIRC we got it at a tile and flooring store in the city of Brea. Can't remember the name but it is a small independant store.
The wife brought home about a zillion different samples until she finally decided on that one. i told her we could time the entire house with just the samples like a collage. She didn't think it was funny.

Funny, because Home Dept carries the same thing. Same here, the wife picked it out.

"....I was told it would be between $7500 and $8000 for my 3 bedroom 2 bath single story house."

Your right that is way too much. I was quoted less than 10K to do my whole building.

Cost was around $5000.00 for 4 bed 4 bath, 4500 square foot house. This included hose bibs, stucco and drywall repair. Expensive, but the peace of mind was worth it.

I believe that home depot does carry aquapex at this time.

JPh

The sales guy from the pipe coating place just left, he came down to $6200 after I told him that i would not spend $7500 on his process as soon as he came in the door.

Need to do a little more research and weigh the options......................

I think you need to figure out the source of the problem. Certain soils can aggressively corrode copper pipe. I suspect that is your problem. As the corrosion is happening from the outside in I am not sure epoxy coating the inside of the pipes is going to help. I would replumb the entire house.

The corrosion is not happening from the outside. On the two pieces of pipes i removed, both had green corrosion built up on the inside around a small pinhole leak which had all indications of leaking from the inside out.

Have your water tested. If it is corroding pinhole leaks from the inside, it is something in the water. It may be as simple as adding a softener or some water conditioning to stop the problem.

When we bought our home back in '82, it had galvanized piping that had been installed when the house was new 1947. As one can imagine, the flow was reduced to about 25% after 35 years. We went with copper repipe in '85 and at the time it was less than $1250 for everything right to the meter. They punched holes in our walls behind the shower valving and patched them leaving us to repaint.

I was completely happy when it was done and it took only one day with 4 guys. Twenty years later and we still have so much pressure it feels like a plasma cutter when the shower is turned on most of the way. We can shower, wash clothes and dishes, and not be affected by a substantial pressure drop.

We are not on a slab, so there is plenty of pipe running under the house in the crawl space. On a slab, wouldn't they run plumbing in the attic if they were to replace everything?

Where is your water meter? Why not just abandon all the pipe under the slab and retrofit new copper? Anybody that can work on Porsches should be able to solder copper pipe, and it's not that expensive at your Home Depot or whatever. $7000 to coat pipes with some epoxy goo sounds way too expensive for a three-bedroom, two bath slab house. You can install new 1/2" copper in the walls by removing the baseboards, cutting back the drywall, notching out the studs at the bottom and placing the new lines 1" apart in nail-in pipe clamps. (I'm assuming your house has wood studs) Be sure to install steel stud-guards over the notches so they don't get hit with nails when you re-attach the baseboards.
I'm not a huge fan of plastic water pipes, but most of the installed examples I've seen have been botched home-owner jobs. I'm sure it works fine if installed correctly, it's just that none of the plumbers I hire even touch the stuff.
That's my take on it; others may feel different. I've rehabbed close to three hundred houses in Western Illinois and never pay more than about $1500 for a complete copper repiping. All the parts and supplies for a house like you describe should cost less than $300, including solder, flux, cleaning tools, a pipe cutter and MAPP torch kit.
The key to successful pipe-sweating is to clean the mating surfaces very shiny, use plenty of flux and heat them till they glow dark red or the flame turns greenish, then feed the solder in all the way around the joint and wipe the drip with a denim rag.
Try it, you'll feel like a pro!

Good Luck,

Joe

Edit: The pipes don't actually 'glow', but rather the surface turns from shiny copper to a dark red. The green flame is a good sign it's hot enough to sweat in the solder. It's easy to do and I actually find it somewhat enjoyable and satisfying.

Re: Re-pipe entire house?
 

It was $6k to repipe our house with copper - 3bedroom/2bathroom built in 1960.

I did the work myself (sweating copper is a PITA, but not rocket science) during a remodel, and had the inspectors sign it off before the drywall went up. Total cost was under $500, mostly due to the layout. Two bathrooms and the kitchen share two walls, so I only need to run the two 3/4" trunks into the attic from the garage, and then run the 1/2" feeders down the walls to the showers, sinks, etc.