Whole house repiping in Pittsburgh, water and gas
If your water pressure has dropped, your hot water runs rusty, or your plumber keeps patching the same three feet of pipe, the problem may be the pipe itself. We repipe whole homes and partial runs across Pittsburgh, water lines and gas lines both. We open the walls, run new pipe, and put the drywall back. Family owned since 1980, licensed and insured.
The pipe in Pittsburgh houses that eventually has to go
Almost every repipe we do comes down to a handful of materials that were standard when the house was built and are not standard anymore. Some fail slowly. Some fail all at once. A couple of them fail in ways you would never guess from looking at the faucet.
A repipe is not always the answer. One leak in an otherwise healthy system is a repair, and that is how we scope it. When the same line keeps failing, or the material itself is going everywhere at once, that is when replacing the whole thing stops being the expensive choice and starts being the cheap one.
- Galvanized steel. It rusts from the inside out, so the pipe looks fine while the opening keeps closing. Brown water in the morning and pressure that dropped so gradually you stopped noticing are the usual tells.
- Polybutylene. Flexible plastic, usually gray, sometimes blue, often stamped PB2110. Common in homes built or replumbed from the late 1970s into the mid 1990s. It is not made anymore and it tends to let go at the fittings.
- Lead. Older service and interior lines. There is no good argument for leaving it in the wall.
- Old copper. Decades old copper with pinholes in the horizontal runs, usually the same short section getting patched over and over.
- Old PEX and PEX-aluminum-PEX. There is a lot of PEX-AL-PEX in this town, and we replace it when the fittings start weeping.
- New copper that is failing early. We are running into this more, and it is real. Water chemistry and electrolysis, stray electrical current finding a path through your plumbing, can eat copper decades before its time.
What a whole home water repipe involves
A whole home repipe runs anywhere from one day to five or more. The spread depends on how many bathrooms you have, how the house is framed, how much of the pipe sits inside finished space, and whether we are working around a slab. You get the scope in writing before anyone starts cutting.
We plan the work so you are not camping in your own house. On most jobs we keep some level of water to the home while the new lines go in, which is usually what makes it workable for a family to stay put through a repipe. If your house is going to be an exception, you hear that before we start rather than on day two.
We run copper, press fit copper, or PEX depending on the house and what you want, and we will tell you what we would put in our own mother's house. We also size the new lines to the house instead of copying whatever was there, because a good share of the pressure complaints we get trace back to undersized trunk lines and too many fittings rather than to the water coming in from the street. Where the pipe is exposed in a basement or a mechanical room, it goes in straight, supported evenly and labeled, which is what makes it easy for anyone to service ten years from now.
- We walk the house and map every run before anything opens.
- We agree with you on where the walls get opened before the first cut.
- New lines go in, get pressure tested, and get inspected where the permit calls for it.
- Fixtures get reconnected, the water comes back on, and we walk the house with you.
- Drywall goes back, gets taped, and gets finished.
Gas repiping and why we run CSST
A lot of the whole home work we do is gas, not water. We see gas piping in Pittsburgh houses that is well over a hundred years old, black iron that has been extended, capped and patched by a lot of different hands over the years. It works right up until it does not.
Modern gas work goes in as corrugated stainless steel tubing, CSST, run continuous out to each appliance with far fewer joints than threaded iron. Fewer joints means fewer places to leak. CSST also has to be bonded to the electrical grounding system, supported at the right intervals, and protected with striker plates where it passes through framing, and those are the details that separate a fast job from a correct one. We size the new piping against the total connected load of every gas appliance in the house, which matters the moment somebody adds a tankless water heater or a standby generator to a system that was laid out for a furnace and a stove.
A whole home gas repipe is usually a one day job. The gas is off for the day, so plan on no stove, no dryer and no gas hot water while we work, and in most cases service is back on and appliances relit the same day.
The meter is the dividing line, so everything downstream of it, the house piping and the appliances, belongs to you and is our work. Our emergency service page explains where that line falls and what it means for repairs.
If you smell gas right now, get everyone out of the house first, then call 911 and your gas utility from outside. Our emergency service page carries the full instructions and the utility emergency numbers, and once your home has been made safe, any repair that turns out to be on your own piping or an appliance is work we do.
We open the walls, and we put them back
To replace pipe in a finished house, somebody has to open drywall and plaster. Every plumber does that. The question that usually goes unanswered up front is who closes it back up.
We do that part ourselves, so you are not left with a house full of open holes and a list of numbers to chase. That is the difference between one job and three. One company, one schedule, one invoice, and one crew answering for how the house looks at the end.
Drywall goes back, gets taped, gets finished, and you get a wall instead of a hole. It gets scoped with the rest of the job, so putting your house back together is part of the plan from the beginning instead of a problem you inherit at the end. There are limits worth naming. Matching an old plaster texture or a discontinued tile is its own conversation, and so is final paint. All of it gets walked through with you before we cut anything, so you know what your house looks like the day we drive away.
- Every planned opening gets marked out with you before the first cut.
- We open along the least visible path that still gives us clean access, not the fastest path for us.
- Drywall goes back, taped and finished, by our own people.
- What we can match and what we cannot, old plaster texture, discontinued tile, custom trim, you hear about at the beginning instead of the end.
Whole house, or only the part that is failing
You do not always need to replace everything. Partial repipes are real work and we do plenty of them: the horizontal runs across the basement, one bathroom stack, the hot side only, a gas line out to a new range or a generator. If your house has one bad section and forty good years left in the rest, a partial is the right scope, and that is what goes on paper.
What we will not do is quote a repipe over the phone. Somebody comes out, walks the house, looks at the pipe, checks the water, and finds out where the runs actually go before anyone puts a number on anything. Then you get your options laid out side by side. You get the price in writing before the work starts.
We pull the permits, and on gas work we handle the paperwork the utility requires. That is our job, not homework we hand back to you.
The crew that shows up at your house
We have been doing this in Pittsburgh since 1980, when John Wahl started the company. It is still a family company, now run by the next generation, and the name on the truck is the name of the people who answer for the work.
Today that is 55 team members, more than 40 trucks, and an 87,000 square foot facility on six acres in Oakdale. Licensed and insured, master plumber on staff, PA HIC #PA022302, A+ with the BBB, and 1,522 five-star Google reviews at a 4.8 rating. We answer the phone around the clock for plumbing and heating emergencies. Repiping is not a side job here. It is core plumbing work for us, and the same company that opens your walls is the one that closes them.
If the pipe in your house is on the list above, or you want somebody to come look at it, call us at (412) 276-9245.
Let us reach out to you
Fill out the quick form and we will call you back. For an emergency, call any time at (412) 276-9245.
Questions, answered
How long does a whole house repipe take?
One day to five or more. A smaller single bath house with an open basement can go quickly. A larger home with finished ceilings, several baths and pipe buried in walls takes longer. We walk the house first, and you get the price in writing before the work starts.
Will I have water while you are working?
Usually some. On most jobs we keep some level of water to the home while the new lines go in, and we will tell you up front about the stretches when it has to be off. You should not have to book a hotel for a repipe, and if your house is going to be an exception, you hear that before we start.
Do you really put the drywall back?
Yes. Restoration is something we do ourselves. We put the drywall back, tape it and finish it, and it gets scoped with the rest of the job. Old plaster texture, discontinued tile and final paint are the three we walk through with you before a single wall gets opened.
How do I know if I have polybutylene?
Look at the pipe near your water heater or at the shutoff under a sink. Polybutylene is flexible plastic, usually gray, sometimes blue, and often stamped PB2110. It shows up mostly in homes built or replumbed from the late 1970s into the mid 1990s. If you are not sure, have us take a look while we are out.
Copper or PEX, which one do you use?
Both are good pipe when they are installed right, and we run copper, press fit copper and PEX. The house usually picks. PEX moves through finished walls with a lot less demolition, which matters when restoration is part of the job. Copper is what many people want in an exposed mechanical space. We lay out the trade-offs and you make the call.
Should I repipe the gas lines too?
Not automatically. But if your gas piping is original to an older house, has been extended a few times over the years, or you are adding a range, a dryer or a generator, it is worth looking at while the walls are already open. A gas repipe is usually a one day job on its own, and it goes in as CSST run continuous to each appliance, sized to the total load of the appliances you actually have.
My copper is only twenty years old and it is already leaking. Why?
It happens, and it is not your imagination. Copper can fail well before its time from aggressive water chemistry or from electrolysis, stray electrical current finding a path through your plumbing. Replacing the pipe without finding the cause just resets the clock. We look at the water and at what is going on electrically around the pipe before we recommend a material.
Ready when you are
Call us and get a straight answer. You get the price in writing before the work starts.
Call (412) 276-9245Schedule online