Repair or Repipe: How to Decide
The honest answer is that most homes need a repair, not a repipe, and you should be suspicious of anyone who reaches for the larger job first. The decision comes down to whether the failure is local or systemic, and there is a straightforward way to tell.
1. Stop the Immediate Problem
If water is actively escaping, that gets handled first. Shutoff, containment, and a repair that restores service. Nobody should be discussing a repipe while your floor is getting wet.
2. Determine Whether It Is Local or Systemic
One failure at one fitting is local. Pinholes appearing in different rooms over a year or two is systemic, and it means the pipe itself is at end of life rather than unlucky.
3. Look at the Pipe
Galvanized steel corrodes internally and chokes flow. Copper in hard water develops pinholes. Polybutylene, if you have it, fails at fittings and is a known problem. What material you have largely determines what happens next.
4. Price Both Paths
You should see the repair cost and the repipe cost together, along with how many repairs you have already paid for. If repeated repairs are approaching the cost of solving it once, that is the argument, not a sales pitch.
If the failing line runs under your foundation, see slab leak repair. If you are not certain where the leak is, start with leak detection. Pricing is on our pricing page.