Copper repiping can be as complicated or simple as you and your budget need it to be. Leaking pipes, rust, and corrosion can all cause wide-spread problems with the plumbing in a house. In many older houses, water pipes were often made of lead, which corrodes over time. Rather than dealing with each incident of busted plumbing as it comes up – which is haphazard and expensive – the best idea might be to re-fit your house’s plumbing with copper piping.

Copper pipes have a number of advantages over other piping solutions. If you were building a house, then you could install fully plastic, long-lasting internal plumbing directly into the crawlspaces and between the walls, and you wouldn’t have an issue. The problem with repiping established houses is that the space you have to work with is usually quite limited.

This is where copper pipes and copper repiping comes into its own. Copper pipes are extraordinarily flexible and let you work in limited space, and can be manipulate using tools that any enterprising DIY’er will have easy access to. In addition, the copper pipes themselves don’t cost a great deal, meaning the cost of a copper repiping project can be quite low.

Alternately, if you’d rather pay someone else to do it, you know that most of what you’re paying for is labour. Unlike some projects, the cost of repiping is fairly low. High grade copper piping prices can be had for around $10US / £6 a metre for smaller pipes, and the most you’d be looking to pay for larger copper pipes is around $20US / £12 a metre for the larger pipes. Joiners, splits and braces can all be had for a dollar or two each.

Plumbers, naturally enough, value their services quite highly. It doesn’t make much difference to them what they’re doing with their time, so they’ll tend to charge the same labor costs regardless of what they’re doing. This means that any preparatory work you can do will end up saving you money.

For example, if you’re going to do a complete re-piping, then you should at least clear out the crawlspaces and make sure the plumber has easy access to everywhere they’ll need to go to get the job done. Paying someone $90 or $100 an hour to have them clear out crawlspaces is hardly a good idea!

If you’re using copper piping for gas, then you need to be especially vigilant. Unless you’re a very, very experienced DIY’er, we’d suggest leaving gas copper repiping to qualified professionals. There’s a world of difference between a leaking water pipe and a leaking gas pipe. In addition, there are almost certainly local laws about the qualifications needed to work with gas piping.

How to Repipe a house

The first step in figuring out how to repipe a house is determining what needs to go. If a pipe has sprung a leak, or your pipes are misbehaving, then you’ve got an opportunity to launch into a repiping project that will fix your problems permanently. Remember that old pipes are prone to leaking, so the older the house’s construction, the more vigilant you need to be about keeping an eye out for leaks.

Some signs you might need to do some copper repiping work are:

Low water pressure. A drop in water pressure, or fluctuating water pressure, indicates a problem with your pipes. Rust and corrosion might have built up in your piping, or a small leak could be affecting the water flow. When you notice a problem like this, make sure you deal with it as a priority. Small leaks can be fixed easily enough with a leak repair kit by even inexperienced DIY’ers. The longer you leave piping problems, the worse they get. Large leaks can lead to problems with water damage, and may not be easily repairable. If that’s the case, then you’ll need to go for a more complicated process of replacing the pipes themselves rather than addressing smaller leaks.

Contaminated Water. If there’s even the slightest hint of a contaminated water supply, you need to deal with it immediately. Sediment, discoloration, a change in taste – all of these can indicate that your pipes are corroding. Especially if you’re in an older house, this can have significant health implications. You don’t want to be ingesting heavy, poisonous metals – and if parts of lead piping are flaking in your plumbing, that’s exactly what you could be doing.

Maintenance. Pipes need looking at regularly. Every 20-25 years is a good timeframe to run over the pipes thoroughly and replace what’s necessary. Remember that problems will be visible before they manifest themselves, so a regular check every 3-5 years will help you spot things like rust and corrosion before they become a major issue.

Repiping a house

So you’ve determined that some repiping needs to be done. The next step is working out if you’re going to go for a complete pipe replacement, getting rid of old pipes and putting in new, long-lasting, copper pipes, or simply fix the issues at hand. If you’re budget-conscious, it’s perfectly acceptable to just fix the problems you can.

Repiping a house is a big commitment, whether you’re doing it yourself or getting a plumber to do it for you. If you do decide to fix some spots yourself, can we strongly recommend establishing an online savings account or somewhere safe, and depositing a small amount of money into it regularly?

Even something small, like $20 a week, will easily pay for the cost of major plumbing works. It’s far better to have a full copper repiping done for a small price like this before catastrophe strikes, after all!

If you’re going to do the copper repiping yourself, then hie yourself to a DIY or hardware store. Have a good chat with the guys there about what you’ll need, and take their advice to heart. Measure what you’ll need and allow yourself a bit of wiggle room. You’ll also need some basic tools, again, which the DIY guys will be able to help you with. There are tons of useful instructional videos on YouTube about how to do the technical elements of copper repiping.

The secret is to take it slowly, double-check your measurements and work, make sure all your joints and bends are as clean and strong as you can make them, and to be prepared for the unexpected. If you do repipe a house yourself, it’s a good idea to do a follow-up crawl-through a month afterwards to see if there are any defects in your work beginning to show.

What sort of budget should you be considering? The cost of copper repiping a single room, if you’re only buying the materials, will probably run to a few hundred dollars. That will cover the piping, joints, gear for sweating and joining pipes, etc. Unfortunately there isn’t much economy of scale if you’re going for a bigger project, so to do an entire house will probably cost you between $1500 and $1800 if you do all the labor yourself.

If you get a professional plumber in to do it for you, then labor costs are going to spiral upwards. If you leave them to do everything, there’ll be around 5-10 hours of maneuvering to get out everything ready, cleared out of the way, and prepared. Then expect another 10-20 hours of straight labour to get the pipes installed over a reasonably sized house. At around $100 an hour, your budget’s probably looking closer to $4,000-$5,000 and possibly a little higher.

This highlights that the more you can comfortably do yourself, the better off you’re going to be financially. Remember to get quotes from multiple plumbers before engaging one. Ask at your hardware store for any recommendations.

They’ll usually know who does good work and who’s a little dodgy in your area. Keep in mind that the cheapest possible plumber is not necessarily the best for you in the long run. It’s far better to pay a little more and not have to worry about the quality of your work, so don’t be penny wise and pound foolish.

We hope that you’ve enjoyed a good overview of the factors involved in copper repiping a house. For more detailed information on copper repiping, check out the other articles on the site.

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