Whole House Repiping
in Palo Alto, CA
Copper and PEX repipes for Palo Alto homes, from 1920s houses with galvanized lines to Eichler slab homes. Every repipe is permitted and inspected, one of our people attends the inspection, and we patch the drywall. Family owned, licensed C-36 plumbing contractor.
Three Symptoms That Usually Mean the Pipe, Not the Fixture
A single fixture running weak is a fixture problem. The whole house losing pressure the moment a second tap opens is a supply problem, and in older pipe it means the working diameter has closed up.
Water standing overnight in corroding pipe picks up what it is standing in. If it clears after running for a minute and comes back the next morning, the pipe is telling you something.
One pinhole is a repair. A second one in a different room within the year is the system reaching the end of its service life, and patching each new leak as it appears is the expensive way to replace a house.
What We Find Behind the Drywall
Supply pipe in Palo Alto comes in a few distinct generations and each one fails in its own way.
Galvanized steel and old copper, the 1890s to 1940s houses of Professorville, Old Palo Alto, Crescent Park and Downtown North. Zinc coating wears through, the steel underneath rusts, and the rust builds inward. These lines do not usually burst, they strangle. Pressure falls off gradually over years until the house feels normal to the people living in it and shocking to anyone visiting. These houses often have plaster walls and historic character, so we plan access carefully and patch cleanly.
Copper under the slab, the Eichler tracts. Greenmeadow, Fairmeadow, Green Gables, Charleston Meadows and Palo Verde homes sit on slabs with radiant heating in the concrete. Copper is sound material in a bad location. A pinhole in a wall is a morning of work. The same pinhole under four inches of concrete is a warm patch on the floor and a water bill nobody can explain.
PEX manifolds, remodels and rebuilds. Modern and generally fine. Where we get called here it is usually one bad run or a fitting, not the system, and a full repipe would be selling you something you do not need.
Repiping a Slab House Without Breaking Up the Floor
Many Palo Alto Eichler homes sit on a concrete slab with the original supply lines buried in it, and the slab often carries the radiant heating. The instinct is to assume a repipe means breaking up the floor, and that is what makes homeowners put the job off for years while the leaks continue.
We do not assume the slab has to be opened. Where the layout allows, we route the new copper and PEX overhead through the attic and drop it down inside the walls, then abandon the old lines in the concrete where they sit. We plan the route at the estimate, so your floors, and the radiant heating in them, stay where they are. Opening the slab is what we do when the layout genuinely leaves no other path, not as a starting assumption.
Copper & PEX, and Why We Pick One Over the Other
Copper is rigid, long lived and the material most people picture when they think about a repipe. PEX is flexible, which means fewer joints and easier routing through finished walls and around obstacles, and fewer joints means fewer places to ever leak.
Most houses end up with a sensible mix rather than a purist answer, and which mix depends on your layout rather than on what we prefer to install. We walk the house and explain the reasoning before you decide.
Permit, Inspection and Drywall Are Part of the Job
A repipe needs a city permit and a city inspection, and in Palo Alto the permit is filed through the City's online Accela portal. Our permit department pulls it, and one of our people attends the inspection with the documentation.
Access openings are part of repiping, and in older plaster-wall houses we take extra care with them. We plan them rather than discovering them, keeping them to what the routing actually requires, and we patch them when the pipe work is done. You are not left with a finished plumbing system and an unfinished house.
Up to 25 Years on a Whole House Copper Repipe
Our repipe warranty runs up to 25 years. It is our own warranty rather than a manufacturer's, so there is one company standing behind the work and one number to call, and it transfers to a new owner when the plumbing is serviced by JetPipe. No service call, no invoice, no questions.
Financing through Synchrony with $0 down and 0% interest when you pay the full balance within 6, 9, 12, or 18 months. You pay exactly the amount on our invoice. Subject to credit approval.
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Repiping Across Palo Alto
We are based in Sunnyvale and serve Palo Alto homes, which matters more on a repipe than on a small job, because the crew is on site across several consecutive days.
Professorville, Old Palo Alto, Crescent Park, Downtown North, University South, College Terrace, Barron Park, Midtown, Charleston Meadows, Greenmeadow, Fairmeadow, Green Gables, Palo Verde
The map shows where we work most weeks, not a fence. We are based in Sunnyvale and we regularly take jobs in Palo Alto. One call tells you whether we can reach you and when.
Do we have to move out while the work happens?
Most Palo Alto families stay in the house. Water goes off in sections rather than all at once, and we sequence the work so at least one bathroom stays usable at the end of each day. We tell you the day before which fixtures will be down.
How many days does a whole house take?
Expect 1 to 3 days for most single family repipes, depending on the project. Access decides more than square footage does. A house with an accessible attic moves faster than an older plaster-wall house where every run has to be opened with care.
Copper or PEX, which would you actually put in your own house?
Usually both, in different parts of the house, which is the honest answer rather than a sales one. Copper on the main runs where it is exposed and accessible, PEX where routing through finished walls would otherwise mean opening three more of them.
What happens to the walls you open?
They are patched as part of the job, and in older plaster-wall houses we keep openings small and plan them ahead. Texture and paint matching beyond the patch is a conversation we have upfront, because a fresh patch on a wall painted years ago will not disappear entirely no matter who does it.
Can you do only part of the house?
Yes, when the pipe age allows it. If one wing was redone at some point and the rest is original, repiping the original half is reasonable. If the whole system is the same age, doing half of it means paying twice for access.
Does a repipe need a permit and an inspection?
Yes. In Palo Alto the permit goes through the City’s online Accela portal, our permit department pulls it, and one of our people attends the inspection. You want it done this way, because an unpermitted repipe becomes a problem at the point of sale, when the disclosure asks what work was done and by whom.