From hidden leaks to whole-home repipes

Shut off every fixture and appliance, then watch the water meter's low-flow indicator — any movement over fifteen minutes suggests water is escaping somewhere. Warm spots on a floor slab, a persistent musty smell, unexplained bill increases, and a water heater or well pump that cycles when nothing is running are all common signs. Closing the main shutoff and rechecking the meter separates a leak inside the house from one on the buried service line. From there, acoustic listening equipment and thermal imaging narrow the location, and isolating hot side, cold side, and irrigation confirms it before anything is opened.

Storage tanks typically last 8-12 years and cost far less to install, while tankless units commonly run 15-20 years and only heat water on demand, which reduces standby losses. The tradeoff is installation complexity: tankless conversions often need a larger gas line, different venting, and sometimes a dedicated circuit, and hard water requires periodic descaling to protect the heat exchanger. Tankless output is limited by flow rate, so a unit sized for one shower will struggle to run two at once. Heat pump water heaters are a third option worth pricing, though they need adequate air volume and produce cool exhaust air; rebates and incentives vary by location and change over time, so check what local programs currently offer.

The usual trigger is a pattern rather than a single event — several pinhole leaks in different rooms within a year or two, or visible green corrosion at multiple joints. Galvanized steel supply lines scale shut internally over decades, showing up as rust-tinged water and weak flow at upstairs fixtures even though pressure at the main is fine. Polybutylene, common in homes built from the late 1970s through the mid-1990s, is generally replaced on sight because of its failure history. If repairs are recurring and walls are being opened repeatedly, a planned repipe is usually the cheaper path.

A cable or auger punches a hole through the obstruction, which restores flow quickly but leaves the buildup coating the pipe wall, so the clog often returns. Hydro jetting sends water through a nozzle at high pressure to scour grease, soap scale, and fine root hair off the full interior circumference, returning the line close to its working diameter. Jetting is the better choice for recurring kitchen line clogs and root-prone laterals, but it should follow a camera inspection — fragile cast iron, clay, or Orangeburg pipe can be damaged by aggressive jetting, and heavy roots usually need mechanical cutting first. If the camera shows a collapsed section or a belly holding standing water, no cleaning method will fix it.

The pipes most at risk are the ones in unconditioned space — exterior walls, crawlspaces, attics, and garages — plus hose bibs left connected to a garden hose. Insulate exposed runs, disconnect hoses before the first hard freeze, open cabinet doors under sinks on exterior walls, and let a pencil-thin trickle run from the most distant fixture during extreme cold. If a fixture stops producing water in freezing weather, open that faucet so melting ice has somewhere to go, locate the main shutoff and be ready to close it, then warm the suspected section gradually with a hair dryer, heat lamp, or hot-water-soaked towels — never an open flame. Damage is frequently discovered only at thaw, when a split section starts flowing again, so stay near the shutoff while the line warms.