Why your water pressure got worse so slowly you never noticed
A customer in Levittown told me last winter that her shower had always been weak. Always. Thirty-one years in the house.
It had not always been weak. It got weak so gradually that she recalibrated, year by year, until weak was normal.
That is what galvanized pipe does. It was standard in the houses that went up here between the war and about 1960, and it rusts from the inside out. The outside of the pipe looks completely fine — that is the part people struggle with. You can look at a length of it in your basement and see nothing wrong. Meanwhile the inside diameter has closed from three quarters of an inch to something you could not push a pencil through.
The two signs worth knowing:
You cannot run two things at once. Someone flushes and the shower changes temperature — not a little, dramatically. That is not the mixing valve, that is the supply.
Rusty water first thing in the morning that clears after twenty seconds. That is overnight sediment sitting in the pipe. If it only happens on the hot side it is probably the water heater. If it happens on both, it is the pipe.
Repiping a typical ranch here — say 1,400 to 1,800 square feet, one and a half baths — generally lands somewhere between $8,000 and $15,000 done properly. The spread is mostly about access: a house with a full basement and an open ceiling is a fundamentally easier job than a slab with finished walls everywhere.
Watch what the quote includes. Patching what gets opened is real work and real money, and a number that looks low usually means you are getting the pipe and someone else's problem with the drywall.
Is it worth it? If you are staying, yes, and you will notice it the first morning. If you are selling in eighteen months, get the leaks fixed and price it honestly instead. We have said that to people and lost the job, and we would say it again.
Got a question about your own place? Call (516) 756-9201 — we’re happy to talk it through.