one question i have: how do you find these companies to get quotes from in the first place? with this or the asbestos or general contractors or anything. as a newish homeowner i find myself asking neighbors and googling, but are there better ways to find someone good? you might have already done a post on this, so apologies if i’ve missed it!

We had most of the incoming water lines redone in our our 1930s Tudor Revival this year. They were galvanized steel and visibly corroding, and we were worried they could blow at any time! Galvanized steel apparently has a lifespan of about 30 years, and these might have been 90 years old. Because most of them ran through the unfinished basement and were visible and accessible in the basement ceiling, it was a fairly straightforward job. It took two plumbers 3-4 days, and they were able to do it in sections so that we never completely lost water access for more than 6-8 hours. We had them replaced with PEX.

We only had them replace what was accessible via the basement and first floor, though, and decided not to worry about the plumbing stacks that run vertically up through the walls to the second floor. I can’t imagine the amount of plaster demo and repair that would have required. Everything in the affected second-floor rooms is original, including plaster, woodwork, and tile, and I don’t want to rip it out unless I have to! If those pipes fail, we’ll deal with it then. To be honest, if your pipes are 50 years old and their typical lifespan is 50-100 years, I’d expect your pipes are fine unless a visual check finds issues.

One thing we added that we’re really happy about is a plumbing manifold. It’s like an electrical circuit breaker panel, but for plumbing. The main water line runs to it, and then each plumbing fixture has its own outgoing line with its own on/off valve. This also gives us peace of mind about the lines we didn’t replace: if any of them goes, we’ll be able to quickly turn off that one line while keeping the rest of the plumbing operational. Oh the joy of behind-the-walls projects! 🙂

Perhaps, but having lived in 150+ year old homes without vapor barriers and never experiencing any problems, they aren’t always necessary. A good home or foundation inspector can help explain he pros and cons for one’s specific situation.

We had our 1912 Craftsmen repiped 18 years ago when we moved in. Old houses often used lead pipes. Our plumber replaced it with copper. There is PVC in places, as well. I think it’s based on code. There might also be galvanized under the sinks. But under the house and in the attic, there’s a lot of copper.

We had $25k left in our remodeling budget once we got around to doing our kitchen (the room we intended to remodel first back in 2005 when we stretched ourselves to buy a house on 1.5 acres for $360k. Oh, how times have changed!). It turned out entirely differently than we originally planned and so much better than it would have been if we didn’t have to get creative.

This is going to be FUN.