Repiping Guides for San Francisco Buildings

The whole picture in one place: what the water supply system is, what San Francisco buildings were piped with and why it fails here, how a repipe is scoped, permitted, installed, tested and lived through, and what to ask before agreeing to one.

Yes, and the permit shapes the job: who files it, which fee category applies, when the inspector comes and what the inspector looks for before a single wall is closed.

The line most policies draw between sudden water damage and pipe that wore out, what that means after a leak in an older San Francisco building, and how a planned repipe actually gets paid for.

A building has two plumbing systems that meet at the fixtures. Repiping replaces one of them. Here is where the line falls, why it falls there, and how to plan when both need attention.

Lining coats the inside of the pipe you have; repiping replaces it. Lining opens fewer walls, but it keeps the old pipe's layout, valves, threads and size, and in San Francisco those are often the problem.

A repipe opens walls in planned places, not along every pipe. Where the old lines run, what the walls are made of and how the building is stacked decide how many openings there are and how much patching follows.

A repipe runs in stages: scope, permit, new lines, cut-over, test, inspection, patching. The pipe work is only one of them, and the building decides how long each one takes.

Typical San Francisco-area ranges for a whole-house repipe by number of baths, what sits inside the price, the permit fees by city, the programs that help and why two quotes for the same house can differ.

A repair fixes a defect. A repipe replaces a material that is failing everywhere. The work is telling the two apart, and the evidence is in the pipe, the pattern of leaks and the flow.

Galvanized steel is not lead pipe, and San Francisco's tap results are low. The real questions are what the pipe was once connected to, what its rust carries into the water and how much life the steel has left.

San Francisco's lead story is mostly history and small parts: lead service lines removed decades ago, short lead connectors on old galvanized lines, and household fixtures and solder. What SFPUC reports, and what an owner can check.

Galvanized pipe is common in San Francisco's older housing and rarely a reason to walk away. What matters is how much of it there is, what the service line is made of, and whether the price reflects the repipe the house will need.

A flashlight, a magnet and a coin answer most of it. What you find decides which questions matter next, and what shows in the garage is not always what runs inside the walls.

Low pressure can start at the street, the service line, a valve, a pressure regulator, the pipe inside the walls or the fixture itself. In a city of hills and old galvanized pipe, measuring before blaming is the whole game.

Brown water has three usual sources: the utility's mains, the water heater and old galvanized pipe. Which taps, which side and how long it lasts tell them apart before anyone opens a wall.

Gas piping is the plumbing job where the permit decides whether the gas comes back on. What DBI requires, what the test and inspection involve, how the release to PG&E works, and how the rules shift in Daly City and South San Francisco.

Two different answers to replacing an old tank. One keeps a tank and swaps the gas burner for a heat pump; the other drops the tank and heats water on demand. How each fits San Francisco's garages, closets, panels and rules.

The Air District rule that sets a zero-NOx standard for new gas water heaters sold and installed in the nine Bay Area counties: what it covers, what it leaves alone, how the proposed changes would shift it, and how to plan a replacement.

PEX is listed in the California Plumbing Code for drinking water, and San Francisco adds no restriction. The state does attach a few conditions of its own, and one of them works in a repipe's favor.

Layout is the repipe decision people hear about last and live with longest. How each design moves water, what it does to the wait for hot water and to shared flow, and which San Francisco buildings suit which.

Both materials are code-approved in San Francisco. The real differences are in how each one travels through a building, what it costs, how it is joined and what has to change around it.

Both are crosslinked polyethylene listed for drinking water in California. They differ in how they are made, how stiff they are and which fittings join them, and those differences show up in the walls of an old San Francisco building.

For owners of rent-controlled buildings, a repipe raises two Rent Board questions: whether the cost can be passed through once the work is done, and whether residents can stay in their units while it happens. Both have specific rules.

The chemistry of Hetch Hetchy water, read for what it does to pipe: why old steel here clogs with rust rather than scale, what chloramine means for material choice, and why the answer changes a little across the county line.

There is no single cause. Water chemistry, flow speed, workmanship, sediment and electrical conditions can each thin a copper wall until it opens, and where the leaks appear is the most useful clue to which one is at work.

SFPUC watches every San Francisco meter hour by hour and writes when water never stops flowing. What sets the alert off, how to check it yourself without touching the meter, what it costs to ignore and how to get part of the bill back.

The first ten minutes decide how much damage a burst pipe does. Where San Francisco shutoffs usually are, what not to touch, who to call in the city and in San Mateo County, and what happens after the water stops.