Fishing PEX through walls like electrical wire?

So I've got a 1930's era house that has/had galvanized plumbing.

It's a summer home and does get shut down for the better part of the year.

Several sections have either frozen or rusted through and over the years.
It appears that contractors, homeowners, or someone buddy that knows a thing or two have been replacing things just as they fail.
Small sections have been piece mealed together in varying flavors of pipe... I've got iron in both Galvanized and Black varieties, copper, CPVC, PEX, and brass from what I can see in the basement and crawlspaces. Some have several transitions all within the same 10 ft section of pipe.

There are also valves that have either rusted solid or have had the stem break off inside. (Including the main!)

I want to start replacing ALL of it.

Copper is both cost prohibitive and has the chance of being stolen. I'm liking PEX, although I've never worked with it.


From the Crawlspace and basement I can get to most of it with common tools, saws, wrenches, etc. It's the risers to the 2nd floor that I'm going to have a fun time with.

Because of the age of the house, I'm assuming there's tons of Asbestos, Lead paint, and other nastiness that I don't feel like releasing. It's also got nice tile work and plaster walls, which I don't want to tear up. Hence, I'm going to try and keep my wall demolition to a minimal.


So in the electrical section of Home Depot, they have 3/4 inch drill bits on a 3 ft long flexible shaft. The tips have self starting screw threads on the end.

I've used these in electrical installations where one cuts in a small hole in the drywall for an old work box, inserts this bit to drill through the header of footer board in the wall, and fishes their wire through the resulting hole


Wondering if this is an acceptable method to run PEX.
Or is there a section of code that specifies that pipe must be supported every X feet?