Better Showers, Better Life: Repipe Plumbing for Old Houses
There’s a moment every old-house owner knows. You step into the shower, twist the handle, and wait. The water warms, you start to relax, then someone flushes a toilet downstairs and your peaceful stream thins to a sulky dribble. If that sounds familiar, your home isn’t haunted. It’s plumbed with aging lines that are past their prime. Repipe plumbing isn’t glamorous, but it is transformative. A well planned repipe is the difference between daily frustration and a home that simply works.
I’ve opened walls in Victorians with lead goosenecks still intact, traced pinhole leaks across ranches plumbed with 1970s copper, and negotiated with brittle galvanized in 1920s bungalows that turned every shutoff into a coin flip. The patterns repeat. Old pipes choke flow, shed rust, foster hidden leaks, and make fixtures infuriatingly inconsistent. A full or partial repipe resets all of that, and if you do it right, it will hold up for decades.
What repipe really means
People toss around the phrase “repipe plumbing” as if it’s a single move. It isn’t. Repipe is a scope decision. You can replace every domestic water line from the meter to the furthest sink, or you can target sections that cause the most pain. You can keep old branch lines to claw-foot tubs for historic charm, or you can reroute lines entirely to get rid of spaghetti plumbing that made sense to a long-gone handyman.
A proper repipe typically includes supply lines for cold and hot water, new shutoffs, and modern pressure balancing at showers and tubs. Some projects add a new main valve, an expansion tank, and a pressure regulator if municipal pressure runs hot. In houses with borderline water service, it may also mean a new main from the street or an upsized meter. Waste and vent piping is a different animal and often a separate project, though a smart contractor will coordinate any surgical openings to avoid redoing finished walls twice.
Why old pipes fail
Materials drive the story. Galvanized steel looks tough, but its zinc coating erodes from inside out. The pipe rusts, narrows, and eventually sheds flakes into aerators and showerheads. With enough time, a one inch galvanized main shoulder can shrink to a poor cousin of itself, barely passing water at morning peak. Those homes also tend to suffer from “cold water steal,” where running a faucet siphons pressure from the shower because the system can’t deliver the combined demand.
Copper solved many of those headaches for a generation, but it has its weak points. Water chemistry matters. Aggressive water with low pH or high velocity creates turbulence at fittings, and turbulence chews copper. You won’t see a dramatic failure at first. You’ll see blue-green stains on valves and pinhole leaks that appear, heal with mineral, then fail again somewhere else. Older Type M copper, especially in hot recirculation loops, is notorious for that dance.
Then there’s polybutylene, a product of optimistic 1980s marketing. In some regions it performed passably. In many, it failed under chlorine attack, leading to a wave of class actions. If your crawlspace looks like a gray or blue spaghetti bowl stamped PB2110, you’re sitting on a time bomb.
PEX changed the game. Crosslinked polyethylene tolerates freeze-bounce better than rigid pipe, installs quickly, and with a manifold layout can deliver consistent pressure across fixtures. As with everything, the details matter. Use the right fittings, protect it from UV, keep it off hot flues, and support it well. Done right, PEX lasts. Done sloppily, it can kink, rub through on edges, or get scorched near a water heater.
The day-to-day cost of waiting
Waiting out bad piping feels thrifty until it isn’t. I’ve tracked water bills that crept up 10 to 30 percent because pinholes wept into insulation where no one looked. One client had a ceiling patch every January that she chalked up to roof leaks. Turned out a hot line in the second-floor wall sweated and cooled, dripped through lathe, and dried before spring. By the time we opened it up, the joist ends were soft.
There’s the quality-of-life tax. An old house with lousy pressure trains you to shower on a schedule, to avoid fixtures like a cursed sink, to run laundry at midnight. Appliances struggle. Tankless heaters short-cycle or complain because they can’t see the minimum flow. Mixing valves get erratic, especially older two-handle tubs that can scald when pressure changes mid-lather. These aren’t eccentricities worth preserving. They’re friction points that drain your day.
Picking the right scope
Not every home needs a top-to-bottom overhaul. You can make smart, surgical choices if the bones are good. I start with a simple map in my head. Where is the water service and main shutoff. Where are the major fixtures. What lines serve them, and what’s the material and size. From there, I sketch the shortest path that delivers even pressure to each group.
If the main is undersized or crumbling, start there. Sizing matters more than most folks think. A 3/4 inch main feeding a four-bath home with concurrent demand will starve under peak use. Upsizing that to one inch can change the character of the whole system. If the mains are fine but branches are a mess, a manifold near the water heater with home-run PEX to each fixture set can simplify future maintenance and stabilize pressure.
I prefer to replace every accessible line in one mobilization when budgets allow. Staged work is fine, but it costs more in drywall patches and labor overlap. If you must split it, start with the trunk lines and anything embedded in exterior walls, which are harder to reach and more likely to freeze. Kitchens and laundry rooms often piggyback on accessible chases, so they come along cheaply when you do baths.
Materials that fit old houses
You can repipe a craftsman without turning it into a neon-plastic experiment. Material choice should match the house, water chemistry, and local code.
Copper remains the gold standard for visible runs in utility rooms and boiler closets. It looks clean, tolerates heat, and with sweat or press fittings you get compact joints. Use Type L for domestic water unless the run is very short or you’re constrained. In areas with corrosive water, any copper needs thoughtful velocity control and dielectric protection when connecting to steel.
PEX shines for distribution behind walls and ceilings. The flexibility lets you snake lines with fewer joints, which reduces leak points. Expansion systems, like PEX-A with expansion rings, create full-bore connections that don’t choke flow. Crimp systems are fine if done carefully and proven in your climate. Keep PEX off water heater nipples with a metallic stub to handle heat, and sleeve it through framing to avoid abrasion.
CPVC exists, and it can work, but it is brittle compared to PEX and temperamental about solvents and temperature. In old houses with tight drilling angles and seasonal movement, I avoid it unless local code and water chemistry make it the clear winner.
For public-facing pieces like exposed risers in a claw-foot tub, don’t ruin the aesthetic. Keep the look with polished supply tubes and period-appropriate valves. Hidden lines can be modern, the visible trim can honor the era.
Reroute or copy the old path
The original plumber took the path that fit the era’s fixtures and structure. That doesn’t mean it’s the best path now. I reroute liberally when I can reduce the number of fittings and avoid exterior walls. In 1920s houses with balloon framing, there’s often a chase behind the stack that reaches from basement to attic. That’s prime real estate for stacked bathrooms. You can run hot and cold beside the vent and drop into each floor with short, insulated branches.
Crossing joists is another puzzle. Old joists are real lumber with heft, but thoughtless boring can cripple them. When choosing routes, I line up holes within the permitted middle third of the span and keep them consistent. If someone hacked big notches at the bearing, I stay clear and sometimes sister a joist before drilling anything. A good repipe respects structure as much as it respects flow.
Pressure, temperature, and noise
A repipe that only swaps pipe for pipe misses the chance to improve performance. Three add-ons deliver outsized benefits: pressure regulation, expansion control, and anti-scald.
If your static pressure at the hose bib reads over 80 psi, install a pressure reducing valve near the main. High pressure feels exciting at the hose, but it hammers valves, opens leaks, and wastes water. A PRV set to 60 to 70 psi makes a system calmer and easier on fixtures. Pair that with an expansion tank on the cold side of the water heater to absorb thermal growth. Without it, you’ll hear moaning pipes and see the T&P valve dribble.
For temperature control, modern pressure-balanced or thermostatic shower valves are non-negotiable. They stabilize temperature when someone starts a load of laundry, which means fewer yelps and less angry stomping.
Noise tells the truth about a system. Water hammer after you shut a faucet indicates sudden flow stoppage and poor bracketing. I strap lines at reasonable intervals, use cushioning clamps, and avoid dead-end runs that trap air. Insulating hot lines reduces both heat loss and that eerie tink-tink cooling sound in the walls.
Real numbers and realistic timelines
People want straight answers on cost and time. The honest answer is that repipe pricing swings with access, finish level, and local labor. For a two-bath, 1,600 to 2,200 square foot house with a basement or crawlspace, a full domestic repipe with PEX distribution and copper stubs often lands in the 8,000 to 18,000 dollar range in many markets. Add a pressure regulator, expansion tank, and simple drywall patches, and you might tack on another 1,500 to 3,000. High-cost urban areas push those numbers higher. Exotic finishes and plaster restoration can push them higher still.
Timeline follows the same logic. A tidy team can rough a modest house in two to four days, then return after inspections to set trim and patch. Plaster work, tile protection, and historic millwork protection stretch the schedule. I tell clients to plan for one busy week and a follow-up visit or two.
Permits matter. Skipping permits looks cheap until the insurance adjuster asks for proof after a leak. Pull the permit. Schedule the rough inspection before you close any walls. Inspectors vary in temperament, but a straightforward, code-compliant job sails through.
Living through the work
You don’t have to move out, but a little planning makes it tolerable. We usually keep one bathroom online most of each day and coordinate short shutoffs. Portable heaters and drop cloths keep dust down, but there will be some, especially in plaster homes. Pack out the sink cabinets. Clear the laundry room. Label the boxes so you can find a toothbrush without digging through hardware cloth and half-empty paint cans.
Water heaters deserve special attention. If you’re keeping your tank, consider swapping old flex connectors and drain valves while the system is down. If you’ve been toying with going tankless, a repipe is a natural moment to do it. Just remember that tankless needs adequate gas and venting, and it demands minimum flow to fire. A smart manifold layout actually helps them perform more consistently.
What better feels like
The payoff for a repipe shows up in small ways. Aerators stop clogging. Showers deliver a steady, even stream at 2 gallons per minute that feels surprisingly generous when turbulence drops. Temperature holds steady when the dishwasher kicks on. Toilets fill with a healthy hush rather than a wheeze. Laundry cycles finish faster because the machine doesn’t nurse an anemic fill line. Those little improvements add up to a home that works without drama.
One client in a 1938 colonial called me a week after we finished. She said her teenage sons stopped asking whether they could shower before school. They just did. Another client finally used the soaking tub she’d ignored for five years because it had taken ages to fill and went cold halfway through. Good plumbing is quiet competence. It frees up attention for better things.
Keeping what you gain
A repipe sets you up for decades, but a few habits will protect the investment. Watch your pressure annually with a 10 dollar gauge on the hose bib. If you see a big jump, the PRV needs love. Exercise your main shutoff and fixture valves every six months so they don’t seize. Insulate exposed hot lines in basements and crawlspaces to cut standby losses. If your area flushes mains seasonally, clean aerators and shower screens once a year to clear any municipal grit.
Sediment filtration makes sense if you see debris or if your water source includes a well. Whole-house sediment filters with a 5 to 20 micron cartridge protect valves and fixtures but don’t overdo it. Too fine a filter starves flow. If you add a softener, size it correctly and bypass hose bibs unless you enjoy watering plants with softened water.
When to go partial and when to go all-in
You don’t have to be absolutist. There are smart partial strategies. If only the galvanized drops to fixtures are failing but your copper trunks are fine, swap the drops. If a single bathroom lives on an exterior wall that froze twice, reroute that bath to interior chases and leave the rest until a remodel. I’ve done PEX to copper stubs for kitchens while the client waited to redo the baths the next year. The key is to make clean junctions with accessible unions or shutoffs, so the future phase doesn’t mean undoing the present work.
Go all-in when the system is a patchwork of incompatible materials, the water quality issues are systemic, or you’ve had multiple leaks in different areas over a short period. At that point, you’re paying to chase symptoms. The money is better spent on a reset.
The art in the details
Good repipe plumbing is craft in the margins. I keep hot on the left, cold on the right, not just at fixtures but in how lines run, so the next person who opens a wall understands the logic. I label branches at manifolds so a parent can isolate a bathroom at midnight without panic. I add nail plates at every stud penetration within reach of future drywall screws. I grommet PEX through metal, strap to minimize movement, and give pipes a bit of room at penetrations so they can expand without rubbing and chirping.
At fixtures, I aim for serviceability. Quarter-turn valves under every sink and toilet. A service loop for dishwashers and refrigerators so they can slide out without straining lines. A clean, drip-free union near the water heater. These touches don’t add much to the invoice, and they save hours over the life of the system.
Codes, insurers, and honesty
Codes aren’t the enemy. They represent hard-earned lessons from failures that hurt people and property. If your jurisdiction requires scald protection, vacuum breakers on hose bibs, or dielectric unions at dissimilar metals, do it. Your insurer will expect compliance after any claim. If you’re selling soon, keep receipts, permit records, and a simple diagram of the new system. Buyers pay attention when they see major infrastructure handled professionally.
Be honest about what repipe won’t fix. If your well pump underperforms, new piping won’t make it brave. If your showerhead is a budget atomizer, even a stout 60 psi won’t make it feel luxurious. If your municipal supply is loaded with dissolved iron, your fresh copper will stain until you address treatment. A good contractor will flag these truths early and fold solutions into the plan.
Choosing a contractor without roulette
Credentials are a starting point. Licensed, insured, with references that aren’t just cousins. More important is fit. Ask how they protect finishes in a plaster home. Ask how many holes they expect to make and how they plan to patch. Ask whether they size systems with fixture units or just “what we always do.” You’ll learn quickly who treats old houses with respect and who treats them like new-builds with antiques inside.
Two quotes rarely match line for line. When you compare, look for scope clarity. Does the price include PRV, expansion tank, new angle stops, and hose bib vacuum breakers. Are permits included. Who handles patching. A cheaper quote that leaves these out isn’t cheaper, it’s incomplete.
A short homeowner checklist
Test static pressure at a hose bib, note the number. Identify your existing pipe materials and visible sizes. Decide whether you want a manifold with home runs or a trunk-and-branch layout. Confirm permits, inspection timing, and wall repair scope with your contractor. Clear access to fixtures and main runs the day before work starts.
The payoff, every morning
Good plumbing vanishes into the background. You notice it when you want to, not because it forces itself into your day. A proper repipe takes a stubborn old house and removes the daily negotiations, the chore choreography, the bracing for a cold shock in the shower. You’ll still have the quirks that give the place character, the creaking staircase and the wide baseboards, the pocket doors that glide when you coax Repipe Plumbing Clackamas them. What you won’t have is the endless workaround for a system that never met your family.
Better showers aren’t a luxury. They’re proof that the invisible parts of the house are on your side. If your mornings are filled with sputters, whistles, and diplomatic treaties over bathroom order, repipe plumbing is the lever that moves the world inside your walls. It’s one of the few upgrades that you feel every single day, and the kind that pays you back in sanity as well as in fewer repair calls. When the water comes on soft and strong, when the temperature holds without drama, you’ll wonder why you waited.
Business Name: Principled Plumbing LLC Address: Oregon City, OR 97045 About Business: Principled Plumbing: Honest Plumbing Done Right, Since 2024 Serving Clackamas, Multnomah, Washington, Marion, and Yamhill counties since 2024, Principled Plumbing installs and repairs water heaters (tank & tankless), fixes pipes/leaks/drains (including trenchless sewer), and installs fixtures/appliances. We support remodels, new construction, sump pumps, and filtration systems. Emergency plumbing available—fast, honest, and code-compliant. Trust us for upfront pricing and expert plumbing service every time! Website: https://principledplumbing.com/ Phone: (503) 919-7243