Plumbing Repair VS Replacement

There is not even one person in this world that has not dealt with plumbing problems and thought about the best decision for his or her situation, i.e., ‘Do I need a repair or a replacement?’

Sometimes people drag this question, and hence, their problem, for many, many years, is closing their eyes on leaky pipes or always clogged drains. And what they do not understand is that a well-timed repair or replacement will save them hundreds or even thousands of dollars of their money if they do it on time and not a few years later.

In this article, we will try to help you to understand by yourself more about your plumbing situation and the best decision for it. It will be especially helpful for those people who are afraid that their plumber is only trying to rip off some money from them.

What is Important to Know

As almost any other thing on our planet, pipes also have their own expiring date, and you should know the approximate time when you should renew your plumbing.

For example, copper pipes can serve you for about 75 years, while galvanized steel may be good for about 100 years. However, that does not mean that your pipes will survive as long: various mediators can shorten their working period.

This will differ in accordance with many of the possible peculiarities, such as:

• The presence or absence of insulation in your pipes, 
• Your usage of chemical drain cleaners, 
• The number of chemicals that your water contains. 

We can continue that list for a long time, but it will not help you much. But what will be is the knowledge of some warning signs that can tell you that it is time to change or repair the plumbing of yours. 

As long as you keep track of them and do what you have to do, you do not need to know exactly what caused this damage. This matters only for those people who experience a constant need for repairs/replacements.

What are the Warning Signs?

There are three main things that you should look for when you think that a replacement is in order.

Here they are:

1. The number of calls that you have made to your plumber. It is only obvious that such calls should not be on a regular basis, as if you have called your friend or a relative. When you notice that quite a big part of your budget is suddenly being spent on plumber services, and they are constant, it is time to replace your plumbing, not call for repairs.
2. Whether or not there is rust in your water. If you have noticed that your water started to be brown in the morning or after a return from a vacation back home, it is time to call your plumber for a consultation. It might be about the disruption of your pipes or some problems with your water heater. The plumber will tell you exactly the problem, and then you can replace whatever is needed.
3. One plumbing problem immediately leads to another. It might be that you cannot really see any serious signs of damage to your pipes, but unexpectedly, repairing one leaking pipe brings to the breakage of the whole construction.
   When something like this happens, or you even managed to fix one faucet, but another one broke not so long after the previous one, then it is time to replace your plumbing. Especially if it all was bought one really long time ago.

These are the main and most important reasons that indicate that you specifically should make a replacement. 

However, there are several others, depending on their longitude and level of seriousness, that you should also think about when deciding on replacement/repair of your plumbing, such as:

• Mold started to grow unexpectedly and rapidly around your house
• Your water bills have become quite big without your increase in usage
• Your water always takes a lot of time to drain
• There is a sound of gurgle in your shower drain when you flush the toilet
• You have a problem with flushing the toilet, and the level of water in it is quite small

In any case, please do not hesitate to call your plumber when you start to see some unexpected behaviors of your plumbing. The longer you take to replace it, the more it will cost you.

How to Lower the Expenses?

Yes, we understand that making a replacement can be quite costly, especially for those people that have found themselves repiping their whole house, as it can cost somewhere around 15 thousand dollars! Or even more, if you have quite a big house. So, here we are going to discuss a few things that you can do to lower your expenditures.

The first thing that you can do is stop your repiping process only on exposed plumbing. There are quite a lot of pipes that are hidden under the walls, so you may want to limit your replacements only to exposed ones.

This definitely will lower the amount of money spent on repiping. However, it will still leave some parts of your house damaged, and if you still want to make a whole replacement, then you should simply divide it into two periods of time — one for exposed and one for unexposed plumbing.

The second thing that can help you with expenses is planning your replacement in sync with some of the other remodeling processes in your house. For example, it will cost you less to replace the pipes in your bathroom if you are remodeling in there at the same time. And the same can be done with other places in your home.

And the last thing that we can recommend you to do is to choose your plumber accurately. Do not go to the first one you will see online, but compare your local possibilities, read some reviews, ask around some people, and only then will you be able to find a plumber that is not only good at his or her job but also is affordable for you.

Besides, finding a decent and honest plumber will help you to decide on the best solution for you, as you will be able to trust this person’s opinion on whether or not you need a repair or a replacement of a pipe, or even some amount of pipe.

What Kinds of Plumbing Methods are the Least Invasive?

When you have noticed that you have some problem with your plumbing in the house but really do not want to deal with damages of your construction or a yard when calling for a plumber, one of the following two methods need to be used by your plumber.

If your pipes are still intact and not even one has become disjointed from others, your plumber should use a method called pipelining. This method inclines that the plumber will make a small pit near your problematic plumbing and put an elastic resin-coated pipe into it, which will then be used to blow air into your plumbing and make it as it was new.
In case of replacements, ask your plumber to do a pipe bursting. With this method, the plumber should detect the ruined pipe and insert a new one inside of it, but with a conical head bigger than the old one. This way, as the head will be bigger, the older pipe will burst itself, leaving only the new one in place. And in order to get rid of the pieces of the old pipe, your plumber should use a pull rod.