Whole House Repiping in Los Altos, CA

Pinholes are how the conversation starts. One shows up in a copper line, it gets repaired, and the house goes quiet for a while. Then another appears in a different run, and the question changes from how to fix this leak to how many more are coming. One failed fitting in a system that's still healthy is a targeted job, and our pipe replacement page covers that work. Repiping is for the other pattern: repeat pinholes in separate runs, or a system that has simply reached its age. In Los Altos that pattern tends to arrive in houses from the 1950s and 1960s that are still carrying their original supply lines. What decides it is the direction of travel, not the last leak. A repipe specialist reads the whole house: pipe material, age, pressure at the taps, and which runs have already been patched. If the answer is one more repair, we'll say so plainly. If the answer is a repipe, you'll get it as a planned project with a date, a scope, and a price, rather than as a string of unplanned visits over the next few years.

A repipe runs in a fixed order, and knowing the order removes most of the uncertainty. First we walk through the house and map every supply run, then mark the access openings on the walls and ceilings before anything is cut, so you can see exactly where the drywall is coming out. New pipe goes in alongside the old, run by run, while the old system stays live. The water is only shut off for the changeover at the main and at each fixture, which means hours without water, not days. On a copper repipe the new runs are pressure tested as a whole once they're connected, and PEX is tested the same way. The city then inspects the work while the pipe is still exposed, and only after that rough inspection are the openings closed. The final inspection comes once the walls are patched and every fixture is back on. For a typical single-family home the work spans a few working days, and you stay living in the house. The old pipe is abandoned in place behind the drywall or removed where it's in the way.

You'll have water every evening. The longest stretch without it is the changeover, and we tell you when that's coming so you can fill a kettle and plan the day. Floors along the working route are protected, and our plumbing service professionals keep their boots covered and their tools off your furniture. Openings are cut as small as the job allows and sized to take a standard-size piece of drywall, usually inside closets, behind access panels, and at fixture backs where paint lines won't show. Doorways get plastic sheeting to contain the dust, and bathrooms go out of service one at a time rather than all at once. Expect some daytime noise and a quiet house by dinner. Patching and painting are usually arranged separately, so agree who's doing that before the start date. At the end, the permit and inspection record sits on file with the city, which matters when you come to sell, because a documented repipe answers the very first question a buyer's inspector asks about a 1950s Los Altos house.