When Is It Time To Replace Your Pipes?

Working with bathroom remodel contractors for a major bathroom project can make your home ready for sale or increase your property value and give you the bathroom experience you’ve always wanted. But while you’re going over the big decisions like whether to upgrade to a toilet bidet or finally get that bathtub with water jets, there is a fundamental question you should also consider, which is whether now is a good time to replace or upgrade your plumbing.

Reliable Doesn’t Mean Indestructible

In many cases, plumbing in a home is one of the better-constructed aspects of a residence, working year in, year out, for decades, or even generations, without ever failing the family that lives there. Part of this is the elegant simplicity of plumbing. Using a combination of gravity and water pressure, water and drainage pipes carry fresh, potable water into faucets, tubs, and toilets and then carry the wastewater to a centralized sewage management system in more urbanized areas or septic tanks for those without. The beauty of this is it requires no moving parts to do so, which is why pipes can potentially last for lifetimes without ever needing a repair.

However, as with anything, even the best-built systems can succumb to time, and there are a few signs that you should be aware of, such as:

Material Age

This depends entirely on when your home was built and what kind of pipes were installed at the time, especially if the pipes in the house are still the original ones the home was built with. Homes built in the 1980s onward, for example, took advantage of PVC for pipe materials, a choice still used today.

However, homes built in the early days of the 20th century used different materials, such as cast iron, which exhibit different behaviors and resistances compared to PVC. PVC, for example, has an upward limit of 100 years, although it’s recommended that the pipes get evaluated for stress and usage after 50. Cast iron, however, can last up to 80-100 years.

Water Coloration

This is an easy sign that a problem must be addressed, although it can have a few different causes. If your faucets only provide discolored water from the hot water faucet, it’s possible the issue is with the water heater tank and not the pipes. However, if all taps and faucets are giving off discolored water, the problem likely lies with the pipes themselves due to corrosion or mineral deposits building up somewhere in the water pipe network.

Low Water Pressure

This could have many causes as well. In some cases, a clogged pipe could be the culprit, but in other situations, a possible issue is that water pipes have degraded enough that there is a leak, or multiple leakages, somewhere along the water pipeline that is weakening the flow and affecting the water pressure. Leaking pipes can also damage the area around them and even introduce mold infestation into a home and should be dealt with seriously.

If you’re looking thinking of getting bathroom remodeling done and are looking for a bathroom remodel contractors to work with, contact us today.