Advise for repiping a house

[Srinivas Mudireddy]

Hi,

I have a 1250sqft 2 story 3 bed 2 bath condo built in 1977 which recently had a big water leak. Because the tenant couldn't detect it in time, we had to throw away newly installed floors on entire downstairs. That made me think if I should repipe the house to avoid any future water leaks since existing copper pipes are 43 years old and we have hard water here in San Diego. Do you think it is a good idea and what would be the typical cost to repipe? I have gotten quotes from as low as 3500 to as high as 12000 and confused what to do.

Thanks,

Srinivas

[Tom Fidrych]

If the leak was the result of hard water corrosion, then you surely would be wise to repipe the home. I assume all the quotes were to replace copper with PEX piping. The cost to do this job is largely a function of the difficulty of accessing the water pipes so you can't use a general cost structure. Get numerous quotes and try to do an apples to apples comparison. For instance, all quotes are to repipe with 3/4" PEX trunk lines, 1/2" PEX pipe to fixtures, new shut off values at fixtures.

It's surprising how varied the price plumbers will quote for the same job. It's possible the company with the highest bid is backed up for months and not hungry for new work.