Repipe home on slab foundation

daluu

I was just wondering, is repiping a home on slab foundation much more expensive than one with crawl space or basement?

And either you do partial repipe, leaving alone the pipe portion under the slab, or you have to tear up parts of the foundation to do the whole repipe for the underground portions?

How much more is the typical cost, if so?

joecaption

Depends your going to have to make some calls on this one.
Does it freeze in your area?
If not you may be able to run it through the attic.

Alan

I guess my first question would be : " Do you want new water lines, new drain lines, or both?"

__________________
Journeyman Plumber

daluu

My area rarely freezes in Northern California, Bay Area.

Does that mean the old line is left intact in the home but disconnected so the meter connects to new piping?

daluu

I guess both? Was just asking out of curiosity in case I may want/need it.

Though I was primarily thinking of the supply line rather than the drains at the time of the post.

Alan

The reason I ask is that if you're running drains, the concrete will be open for putting new water lines underneath as well.

I would say any time you have to work with concrete, you are looking at more money.

I'd much rather repipe from an attic, but that of course usually entails a lot more damage to sheetrock.

__________________
Journeyman Plumber

daluu

I wonder how often people (homeowners) do select repipe through attic? Is it common practice?

daluu

Also what if you have limited attic space? Use wall space and/or repipe with external pipe connections (exposed) outside house (for which you want to insulate, and hopefully not live in freezing climate).

Is repiping with exterior pipes an even rarer occurrence (even in non-freezing regions)?

Ravenworks

I watched a you-tube video where they tunnelled under the house and hung the pipe with all-thread fastened to the floor above.
The whole time I was watching this all I could think about was how much $$$ the job was well done though.

Homerepairguy

Repiping design should be with the shortest possible path for the hot water lines to minimize wait times for hot water. Also, with a trunk and branch system, the hot water trunk lines will have to be 3/4" or 1" so round-about routing of trunk lines will make the wait times even longer plus a lot of water wasted.

Running lines outside of the house, even if it never freezes, would probably result in quite long hot water trunk lines with all of the disadvantages, not to mention possibly lowering the value of your home.

HRG

daluu

Understood, I was just wondering. But for the long pipe run for hot water issue, you can compensate with a water return line (dedicated return vs connect hot and cold lines together at fixture).

daluu

Ravenworks, do you have the link to the video? I'd like to see it for insight.

Ravenworks

Here it is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmIaqosVUHw
They have a very informative website,I was impressed by their job which is hard to do.

Javiles

This is a little test for all the plumbers on this site check out the video and see how many things you can find wrong with that job.??? If you where a plumbing inspector.

__________________

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

TheEplumber

I'm kind of claustrophobic, so I'd inspect it from the outside by yelling into the hole "make sure you vent everything"

__________________
When posting in forums, letting us know your location will help others give better feedback/advice/solutions to your questions