A repipe means one thing here: taking the old water supply lines out of service through the whole house and running new ones.
Is your house due, or is it one bad spot?
One leak is a repair. A house that’s due for a repipe shows a pattern: pressure that’s weak at every tap, not just one; rusty or brown water from several faucets, especially first thing in the morning; pinholes that show up somewhere new every few months; and ceiling or wall stains that weren’t there last year. When the leaks move around, the pipe is failing as a whole, and patching it is paying for the same problem twice.
Age sets the odds. U.S. Census Bureau figures show about 40% of Houston’s housing was built between 1940 and 1979, and about 28% of Jersey Village homes went up in the 1960s and ’70s. Many are still on their original supply lines. Not every one needs new pipe, but it is worth checking before the next leak.
How to tell what kind of pipe you have
Look where the pipes are exposed: on top of the water heater, under the kitchen sink, and in the attic if you can get there safely. Dull gray metal that a magnet sticks to is galvanized steel. Reddish-brown metal, often green-tinted at the joints, is copper. Gray plastic pipe is the polybutylene used in some 1980s and early-1990s homes. Flexible red, blue or white tubing is PEX, and stiff cream-colored plastic is CPVC. Many houses have more than one.
If you’re buying, the inspection report already tells you some of this. Texas home inspectors must report the visible material of the water supply lines, report the static water pressure, and mark pressure over 80 psi as deficient. If your report flagged the pressure, say so when you call; high pressure wears on new pipe as well as old, and a pressure-reducing valve may belong in the plan.
PEX or copper for a Houston house
We repipe Houston homes in both and will tell you which we’d pick for yours. PEX is flexible tubing that snakes through walls and attics with fewer joints, so there are fewer places to leak and less cutting to get it in. Copper is rigid and long-proven, and some homeowners prefer metal.
One thing to know: the EPA notes that all water is corrosive toward copper to some degree, which is why old copper can pit from the inside even in a well-run system. Houston’s main-system water also carries about 135.5 mg/L of hardness in the City’s 2025 report, so scale is part of life here with either material. Before you sign, have your technician name the PEX and fittings we install and what the manufacturer’s warranty covers.
What a whole-house repipe includes
A repipe covers the pressurized water lines: hot and cold supply from where water enters the house to every fixture, water heater included. Your written price lists exactly what’s in scope, including whether new shut-off valves at the fixtures, the outdoor hose bibs and the water-heater connections are part of it, so ask about anything you don’t see.
What it doesn’t cover matters just as much. Drains and the sewer line are a separate system; see sewer line repair. The yard line from the meter to the house is usually the homeowner’s to maintain, but it’s a separate job; see water leak repair. Faucets, toilets and the water heater stay unless you want them replaced at the same time. We don’t do slab leak repair.
Galvanized pipe replacement
Galvanized steel fails from the inside. The zinc coating wears off over the decades, the steel rusts, and the scale builds up until water is squeezing through a fraction of the original opening. That’s the weak pressure and the brown water. The threads at each joint are the thinnest part, so they rust through first, which is why one spot repair on galvanized tends to be followed by another a few feet away. Once a galvanized house starts leaking, replacing the whole run is the repair that lasts.
Copper pinholes and repeat leaks
A copper line that springs one pinhole can be patched. A second pinhole within a year means the pipe wall has thinned along the run, not at one spot. New pipe for the whole run is the repair that holds. If your copper went in before June 1986, the solder at the joints may predate the federal lead-free rule for pipe, solder and flux. A repipe retires those joints along with the pipe.
What the job looks like day to day
Repiping is a big job in a lived-in house. Before the first day, your technician will tell you how many days to expect, when the water will be off, and when it comes back on.
The new pipe runs through the attic and down the walls to each fixture, so some openings are unavoidable. Two things to settle before the first day: where the crew expects to open up, and how they protect floors and furniture. When the new lines are connected and the water is back on, walk every fixture with your technician before you sign off. What happens to the old lines, and whether drywall patching is included, should both be clear before you sign.
What changes the price
We don’t post repipe prices because two houses the same size can be very different jobs. What moves the number: stories and bathrooms, slab or raised foundation, how much of the run can go through the attic instead of the walls, PEX or copper, and whether the water-heater connections, hose bibs and drywall patching are in scope. The diagnostic is free and the price is in writing before any work starts. Financing is available through GoodLeap, subject to credit approval.
Who does the work, and what’s on the invoice
Every repipe runs under the Texas Responsible Master Plumber license held by our master plumber, Ricky Mills. Texas requires that name and number on the first page of every written proposal and invoice. A whole-house repipe is a new installation, so it carries our 1-year labor warranty plus the pipe manufacturer’s warranty, which is separate; both are printed on your invoice.
From our job records: 77041, January 2024, a whole-house re-pipe in PEX.
Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS, year structure built, Houston · U.S. Census Bureau, ACS, Jersey Village · TREC Standards of Practice, 22 TAC §535.231 · EPA, consumer factsheet on copper · City of Houston 2025 water quality report · EPA, lead-free pipes, solder and flux · 22 TAC §367.10, license display. Checked November 2026.
