Most whole-house repipes we do land between $2,000 and $8,000. A small single-storey slab house with one or two bathrooms sits near the bottom. A larger house, a two-storey, or a job that takes the drain lines as well as the water lines sits near the top. The single biggest thing that moves the number is not the pipe — it is how much wall has to come open, and who is putting it back.
That is our range, from our jobs, in our market. It is not a national average, and a national average on this subject is worth nothing to you: it blends a bungalow in Ohio with a two-storey in California and tells you nothing about a slab house on the Gulf Coast.
Why we publish a range and not a price. Nobody can price this job from a web page, and any site that gives you one number is guessing. What we can do is tell you the band our own jobs actually land in, what pushes a job to each end of it, and what we would need to see to give you a real number. That is what this page does.
What actually decides where in the range my house lands?
Four things, roughly in order of how much they move the number:
- Fixture count, not square footage. Bathrooms, kitchen, laundry, water heater, hose bibs. A repipe is priced by how many places pipe has to arrive, not by the size of the living room.
- One storey or two. On a single-storey slab house the new lines run through the attic and drop down. Upstairs bathrooms mean lines coming down through walls and ceilings, and considerably more opening up.
- Water lines only, or drains as well. These are two different jobs that people often assume are one. Supply is the usual repipe. Drains under a slab are a tunneling job, and priced separately.
- Who closes the walls. Sheetrock, tape, float, texture and paint is frequently the longest stage of the job and sometimes a different trade entirely.
A repipe is priced by how many places pipe has to arrive, not by the size of the house.
Why do two quotes for the same house look nothing alike?
Ask every bid you get one question: does this include sheetrock, texture and paint?
That single question explains most of the gap between two numbers that look unrelated. Neither approach is dishonest. Comparing a plumbing-only bid against an everything-included bid, and picking the lower one because it is lower, is how people end up surprised.
The second question worth asking is what material is going in, and where. We run Uponor PEX-a inside the house. We do not run PEX outdoors where it is exposed, because UV degrades it — outside, copper gets replaced with copper. A bid that is cheaper because it puts the wrong material somewhere is not cheaper.
Is it cheaper to just keep repairing it?
For a while, yes, and we will tell you when that is the right call. A single leak on an otherwise sound system is a repair, and we would rather do the repair.
What changes the arithmetic is repetition. Three leaks in a year on original pipe is not bad luck. Galvanized rusting through at one joint is rusting everywhere along that run, because the whole run is the same age and has had the same water through it. At that point repair money is maintenance on something that is going to keep failing, and the repipe stops being the expensive option.
The two other signs worth knowing: brown flecks or grit in the water, and pressure that has quietly dropped off over a few years as galvanized silts up from the inside.
What about an apartment building?
Cheaper per unit, and it does not have to happen all at once. On a Baytown building we worked on, a galvanized riser feeding eight units had rusted through at a joint; the building dates to the 1970s and the pipe was original, so roughly fifty years old.
Most owners in that position cannot take a building out of service and do not need to. The usual approach is one unit at a time as tenants move out, while the unit is already empty and the walls are already being patched and painted. The repipe adds days to a schedule that was happening anyway. Tell us the turnover schedule and we will work to it.
Can I spread the cost?
Yes. We offer customer financing through the quote we send you — it is an option on the quote rather than a form on this website, which is why there is no application link on this page. Ask for a quote and it will be on there. More on financing.
What would you need to see to give me a real number?
The house, usually. What we are looking for: how many fixtures, what the existing pipe is and what condition it is in, whether the attic is workable, what the walls and the tile are made of, and whether the drains need to be part of it. That is a visit, not a phone estimate.
What we will not do is give you a number over the phone off a description and then revise it upwards once we are in the attic. See repiping, how a slab house gets repiped and how long it takes.
Common questions
How much does it cost to repipe a house?
Most of our whole-house repipes land between $2,000 and $8,000. Where yours sits depends mostly on size and scope - how many bathrooms, one storey or two, whether it is the water lines only or the drains as well, and whether the bid includes putting the walls back.
Why is the range so wide?
Because a one-bathroom single-storey slab house and a four-bathroom two-storey are genuinely different jobs, and because half the bids in this market price the plumbing only while the other half price the plumbing plus sheetrock, texture and paint. Ask every bid you get which one it is.
Does that include fixing the walls afterwards?
Ask us and we will tell you exactly what is in the number we give you. Wall repair is often a separate trade, and a plumbing-only bid is a real bid - it is just not the whole cost of getting your house back to normal. Comparing one kind against the other is what goes wrong.
Is it cheaper to keep repairing instead?
Up to a point. One leak is a repair. Several leaks in a year on the same original pipe is a pipe telling you something, and at that stage repair money is being spent on a system that is going to keep failing. Brown flecks in the water and pressure that has dropped off are the other two signs.
Can I spread the cost?
Yes. We offer customer financing, and the option appears on the quote we send you rather than as a form on this website. Ask for a quote and it will be on it.
Do apartments cost the same per unit?
Less per unit, because the scope is smaller and the walls are usually already open. Most owners do them one unit at a time on tenant turnover, while the unit is empty and being painted anyway - which spreads the cost over years rather than taking a building out of service.
Last updated · written by a licensed master plumber, MPL 38224