Home › The Number We Will Not Print

The Number We Will Not Print

Every article about repiping has a table of how long each material lasts. This site does not, and the reason is not caution for its own sake.

The summary

Figures of the form "copper lasts fifty years" are published everywhere and are not printed here. A service life depends on water chemistry, pressure, installation quality and temperature, none of which the number carries. Ask instead about the leak history of that system.

PipeRenew is a referral service, not a contractor. We connect homeowners with independent contractors. Contractors are required to hold whatever credential their state or municipality demands, and replacing a water distribution system is a permitted alteration nearly everywhere — ask to see the permit. We carry out no work, we sell no materials, we do not set prices, and we never charge homeowners anything — the contractors in our network pay us when we route them a call. Nothing here is legal advice about any claim.

What the number leaves out

Pipe does not age on a calendar. It degrades according to what is flowing through it and how: the chemistry of the water, its pH and hardness, the pressure it is held at, the velocity it moves at, the temperature on the hot side, and how carefully it was installed and supported in the first place.

Two identical copper systems installed the same week in different towns can be in very different condition thirty years later, and a national average cannot know which one is yours.

Where the figures actually come from

They circulate. They are quoted by people selling repipes, by insurance-adjacent content, and by articles citing other articles. When we went looking for a body publishing a defensible service life for domestic supply pipe, we did not find one we were willing to stand behind.

So rather than repeat a number whose origin we cannot show you, we leave the gap and say it is a gap.

What to ask instead

What condition is this pipe actually in, and what did you look at to decide that? What is the pressure at the fixtures, and what is it at the main? Has the bore narrowed, and how do you know? Where have the failures been, and do they share a cause?

Every one of those is about your house. The service life table is about nobody’s.

The one date that is real

The polybutylene window is exact — 1 January 1978 to 31 July 1995 — because it comes from a court record rather than from folklore. That is what a usable date looks like, and it is the only one on this site.

Source: the court-approved class notice, Cox v. Shell Oil Company, administered by the Consumer Plumbing Recovery Center.

And the other two things we will not print

A price. We do not set them and never see them. What actually moves a repipe quote is a more useful page than an invented range.

A verdict on your house. Nobody who has not seen it can give you one, including us.

Photograph the printing on the pipe before you call.It names the material and often the year, and it is the single most useful thing you can have ready. We route to contractors who do this work in your area, picked on the ZIP code you give, and you are never charged. Repiping is just what we write about — any plumbing work at all can be routed.

Call (888) 834-6040