Repipe single family home

[thomasb]

Hi,

I have a 3 bedroom, 2 bath, kitchen, water heater, dishwasher and laundry across 1500 sq ft. The plumbing is in the crawl space, house is on septic.

The pipes to the septic are rusted. The main bathroom sink drain pipe in the wall is also rusted. (The sink fixture is newer, the drain pipe older.)

Some of the copper to the bathrooms and kitchens shows blue discoloring at the joints. There is a mix of pex in addition to the copper going to the kitchen/ bathroom fixtures.

Just replaced the hot water heater with a tankless after coming home to a failed water heater gushing water (6 year old unit, plumber suggested those tend to last 10-12 years.) The pex to the water heater was discolored too.

Do you recommend I re-pipe the house?How much of this would you recommend I do at once? Can some of it wait 1-5 years?5-10 years? Do I need to go all the way to the septic (sewer / drain pipes are buried).

Open to suggestions.

Thanks,
Thomas

 

[voletl]

Are any of the drains draining slow? The reason I ask is because the time frame you gave anywhere from 1 to 10 years so this doesn't seem like it's a major concern for you to do right at this moment. If you're going to repipe your house I suggest you do everything all of it all at once take the hit once and be done with it but if something's not leaking and there is no slow drains or anything's backing up then I say you could wait as long as you feel you want to. The rust look superficial that's extra heavy cast-iron should last a long time.

 

[thomasb]

The drains all seem to drain fine. I didn’t notice any leaks in the crawl space.

The rust on cast iron drains was called out as part of the home inspection.

The concern was partly why the water heater failed after 6years and the discolored pex going into the water heater.

I threw the long term time frame out there to ask if I should be concerned.

 

[thomasb]

What about these copper pipes? The join to the right of the pic with multiple pipes?

 

[Jamesplumbing06]

I tell everyone to start budgeting as soon as you start worrying. It’s crawl. Check it once a month and get 4-6 estimates if you want. 3 is good enough. I live and breathe Repipe’s. It’s much easier for us to cut valves above floor and rip it all out at once. So therefore it’s cheaper on my customers. But for a budgeting family a good plumber should work with ya if you want phases. I would ask you to budget $4500. Using pvc and expansion pex with brass fittings. 2-3 days to complete

 

[mike fiore]

absolutely do it all at once. like Voletl said...if there are no issues, leaks ,slow drains then start to get estimates and do it when you can.

 

[fixitron]

The discoloration on the copper pipes is not indicative of leaks, in my opinion. Some of that looks like it could be from condensation and acids left on the copper. Was the PEX connected directly to the water heater inlet or outlet? You should have a length of copper off of the water heater and then connect the PEX, or else the PEX could overheat and discolor. The failed water heater could be from acidic water. If your water supply has a pH of much less than 7, it will eat away at the tank. There are also defective tanks. I have replaced at least one hot water tank (electric) less than a year old due to manufacturing defect. The tankless water heater is more prone to clogging if water quality is poor.
I also vote for holding off and doing it all at once. Your system has been added to and modified over the years. It is smarter to re-pipe everything to accommodate your present conditions, maybe even considering a PEX manifold for distribution.
As for home inspectors, there are some good ones, but I see many reports where the inspector doesn't know what he is talking about (like the one that claimed in two separate homes that the furnace needs to be inspected to make sure that the heat exchanger was not cracked, but both homes had boilers!), and I have many more examples.

 

[chiraldude]

Agree that you should start a savings plan for repiping the house so you have enough to pay without going into debt. From your pictures I don't see anything that is on the verge of failure so take a year or two to build up a repair fund.
A note about inspectors: The main purpose of a buyer inspection is to find defects. Either to give you an excuse to back out of the sale or to negotiate a lower sale price. Slightly exaggerating defects is part of why you hire an inspector.

 

[thomasb]

Thanks for all the suggestions. Will work on getting some quotes and budget from there.