DISCLAIMER:
I am not a professional plumber, electrician, or carpenter. Vet your information thoroughly and use this information as information not as statement of facts of building, electrical or plumbing codes or even the proper way to do things. While I tried to adhere to best practices I am sure some real plumbers will cringe at some of that I did. I am however fully comfortable with how I did things and how things are turing out.

Summary:
After several pinhole leaks, I decided to get out in front and re-pipe my home. This project is not for the faint of heart. You should be relatively handy and willing to plan as much out up front as you will need various tools for different aspects of the project. You must decide that money is more important than time unless you have the time to dedicate to get this done quickly. Even then you will likely take much longer than a plumber that does this every day. Because I enjoy many aspects of DIY and I want the pipes run as efficiently as possible I decided to do this myself.

ELECTRICAL WARNING:
If your house is all copper piping depending on when it was built switching to PEX or CPVC degrades your electrical system grounding. For many years if you had copper piping that was considered 1 or the 2 legs to your electrical system ground. You may need or want to get a second ground rod installed. If your house is 30+ years old you should check on your ground rod as they corrode and degrade over time. As a note I replaced my existing corroded (builder improperly installed) ground rod with 2 new 5/8 listed rods several months before this project.


Background:
Some history. I live in a part of Georgia that there have been some issues with pinhole leaks developing over the years. My home is 38 years old, and I am the second owner (30 years). In the fall of 2021, I discovered the first pinhole leak, that luckily was in the basement. The plumber noticed a second one not far from the first dn thus replaced a section of pipe to repair both. That is when I leaned this was an issue in my area and may eventually get worse. We adopted a wait and see approach. About 2 months later a 3rd pinhole developed in a separate part of the basement. Since we remodeled 7 years earlier, we were now concerned that addiotnal leaks may form in the walls/ceiling that may cause problems in the remodeled areas. During December 2021 we began to get quotes on re-piping the house. I began to do my homework so I can ask intelligent questions of the plumbers quoting the jobs. I wanted to know what type of pipe they would use and preferably the brand (as all pipe is not created equal). I got 5 different quotes. All said the job would take about 3 maybe 4 days. Being Covid I was also concerned about the precautions they would take while in my home for 3+ days straight, and essentially most would not disclose vax status or commit to wearing masks.

Of the 5 quotes 3 said they would use PEX-B, one said PEX-A and the last was CPVC. The prices for my home were from $7,800 to $11,250. The CPVC quote surprised me as during my research everything I read or watched was exclusively PEX. At first the CVPC was appealing as the cost was good, they had dedicated re-pipe teams and even included closing the wall and ceilings afterward. I liked that CPVC leeched less plastic into the water than PEX, but after more research became weary of CPVC as it can get brittle over time and easily crack if stressed. Of course, there are those that swear by CPVC and that the reputation was years ago and today if you go with a brand like Lubrizol FlowGuard you may not have those issues. That was too much risk for me, so I crossed that option off the list. That left me with the PEX-A vs. PEX-B options. I will not go into a great deal of the pros and cons of each as Google and YouTube are your friends for research. The simple comparisons are that with PEX-A you expand (cold expansion F1960) the ends and slide the fittings (F1960) in which in theory means the fittings do not have a major impact on flow rate since the fitting opening is about the same size as the pipe inner diameter. PEX-B the fittings just slide in the pipe (F1807 Brass/stainless or F2159 plastic) then you use a crimp or cinch clamp to secure the pipe to the fittings. You can reduce the impact on flow with PEX-B by using either brass or stainless-steel fittings as they have thinner walls and this impacts the flow less. There is one exception and that is Zurn makes a PEX-B that can be expandable (cold expansion F1960) or used with crimp/clamp (F1807 or F2159). PEX-A is considered more flexible when needing to make bends. If you have long runs or many bends and go PEX-B it is recommended you upsize your pipes to overcome any flow impact from the fittings. Thus, 3/4 inch pipe becomes 1 inch, 1/2 inch becomes 3/4inch and then size back down at the last leg before the fixture. Some people do not care or the impact is not very noticeable, but you want to make that decision before work is started.

If I take the CPVC quote all the other quotes would need to factor in an additional $3K - $4K to fix the walls and ceiling, meaning this project would wind up costing $11K-$15K. I did a lot of research and decided we could do this ourselves and save $3-4K. The trade off being time, as a plumber would be in and out in 3-4 days followed by the walls and ceiling being patched, vs what will likely wind up being at least 3-4 months for us to do it as I was only doing this each Saturday. One advantage of doing it myself is I am more vested in the outcome than a plumber. The way some of the pipes are run in my home makes no sense and every plumber I asked if they would route pipes more practically said no. Sure many plumbers will give you some decent warranties, only one offered lifetime on their labor while the rest were all 1-5 years.

Finding the pipes:
Because the basement is open, we know where all the pipes that feed the first floor go, and we can see where the truck lines up to the second floor go. We also had the kitchen wall open for the remodel, so we knew how it routed upstairs. The trick was figuring out how much of the kitchen ceiling to open. I decided to rent a thermal camera to help locate the pipes. The rate was reasonable, and it would help isolate what portions of the kitchen ceiling needed to be opened. We rented form Home Depot and the battery was only 50% charged, but that was enough for use to get this all done. Pipes in a wall are much closer to the surface and thus a thermal camera will show a very distinct image. Pipes in a ceiling are further form the edge of the ceiling and our ceiling used to have plaster patterns that were smoothed during the remodel so that added an additional layer that insulates. We started running hot water through all the fixtures to see what would show on the thermal camera. Wall pipes were very clear to find. After a few seconds parts of the ceiling started indicating a rise in temperature. While not as precise as the walls it did allow me to get to a direction within a bout a 1 foot wide path. Without knowing which side the cold water was on I then used a Walabot stud/pipe finder to help better isolate the exact locations. Int eh pictures below you will see green and blue painter’s tape. Green tape is where the Walabot indicated a potential pipe and the blue is the joist locations. The Walbot was a bit finicky, and I wound up returning it as it was not something I would use going forward due to constant mixed readings. I did wind up getting a Franklin Sensors 710+ stud finder which is the best most accurate stud finder I have ever used.

Opening the walls and ceilings:
The biggest issues with opening drywall are dust and the fact that drywall is actually hard on cutting bits. We started small with a few walls. To contain the dust, we built a small bubble out of thin (0.7mil) plastic. For walls this became unnecessary as the dust mostly drop straight down the wall. She would stand there with our HEPA vacuum following only as I cut to pull in most of the dust. After the first wall we no longer used any plastic as dust and debris was minimal. Opening the walls was rather straight forward and moved quickly. The ceiling consumed the most time and proved to be the most challenging mostly because of the 1/16 – 1/8 or plaster (drywall mud) that coated it. Because of this we built a bubble out of the plastic to enclose the are we would be working in to help make clean up easier. The ceiling burned out my Dremmel and I then bought a real Rotozip, which was far more capable. Be warned rotary drywall bits will get burned up very quickly. The ceiling got to a point that I was spending almost as much time swapping bits as I was cutting. The reason I used a rotary tool was to have precision control of depth of the cut as I knew in some places wires and pipes were close to the surface and did not want to cause any major issues. Take my advice do not use any type of large circular saw as it will throw dust everywhere, bubble of not. One point of validation for doing this project now was that when we opened the kitchen ceiling there was a pinhole leak that looks like it had been there a bit as it was wicking along the joist so had not made it through the kitchen ceiling. Days after opening the kitchen ceiling another pinhole appeared in a different pipe in the ceiling. Could be that all the vibrations of opening the ceiling accelerated it, but that is now 5 pin holes in less than 6 months.

Planning the pipes:
As we were opening walls and ceilings, I had already built out a spreadsheet of the various pipe and fittings I would need. I had decided on PEX-A and at first was going to use Rehau pipe with their expansion fittings. A few fittings were back-ordered a considerable time. I wanted to make sure I used the same brand pipe and fittings to avoid any warranty issues if there was a problem down the road. That is personal choice in the end you are buying a product and if you believe in the product the warranty is more peace of mind. I eventually went with Uponor PEX-A because I could get all the fittings, supports, etc. and would be a complete Uponor system. Uponor warranties their pipe for 25 years when used with their fittings. Every fitting that touches their pipes I bought in Uponor products. When selecting pipe, you typically have 3 color choices, red (hot), blue (cold), white. Uponor has pulled their red and blue pipes due to issues so with hem it is straight forward, white. Other brands you can color code the piping. Color coding just makes installing more fool proof, but means you have to be more deliberate in ordering and planning you pipes as now you need 2 colors and typically 2 sizes (3/4 and 1/2). Going white means, I don’t have to worry if I am short a specific pipe/size as it is easier to order a few extras of 2 pipes than 4 pipes. Next choice is coils vs sticks. Coiled are convenient and take up less space, but you have to fight with the coil as you use it. Look for videos on how to straighten the pipe as you use it. When bending PEX there are certain minimum radius you need to adhere to that is generally 6X the outer diameter of the pipe. Several manufactures will call out that if you bend the pipe opposite to the natural direction of the coil you need to double that number and making many bends potentially impractical. Sticks come in 20 foot lengths and thus take up more space to store, but are easier to work with. The downside to sticks is in runs over 20 feet with no fittings will require a coupling. A key advantage of PEX is the less fittings the less chance of a leak. I mapped out where all my pipe will be going, and they may only be one or 2 places I will need to use a coupling for a total of 2 cold and 1 hot couplings. (As of now, with more than 75% done I have used 4 couplings, 3 of which were my dumb mistakes and I had to recut a section to splice and coupling and a 5th to convert 3/4 to 1/2 near the kitchen)

I then sketched out a diagram of where all the piping will go in the house noting the pipe size and the necessary fitting at each junction. If you have not done any plumbing, you need to learn how to read fittings and sizes. You need to know the difference between say 3/4 x 3/4 x 1/2 fitting vs. a 1/2 x 3/4 x 3/4. I calculated the number of each size pipe and the specific fittings I would need. I padded all numbers to make sure I had extras or if something changed at the last minute. I then created a order list to place my order. I ordered most of the PEX-A and fittings form Ferguson plumbing supply as they are big in this part of the state and carried everything I needed. They would also deliver everything (especially the pipe) for free. An additional benefit of Ferguson is they do not hare a return window, it is indefinite if you have the receipt. That is helpful if the project runs long. I ordered many supporting fittings and items from SupplyHouse (online) which has free shipping over $99 and 90 day returns with no restocking fee and then 10% fee on returns over 90 days. SupplyHouse seems to have large inventory and I was able to get many things in 2 days.

Methodology:
One thing with a project like this that will run weeks or months is how to do it without cutting off your water. I decided I would build out large portions in parallel then cut over a large portion of the critical water at one time leaving some minor fixtures to do aftermost was cut over to the new pipe. To do this meant drilling new holes and parallel paths to get to fixtures so that a cutover could be smooth and minimize the time without water. This creates more work and needs more tools to add these new routes. Standard rules for water pies regardless of size is holes of 1 3/8 inches. Depending on where you are doing this it means 1 or more 1 3/8 inch bits. I would up with 3, a 18 inch and 7 1/2 inch auger bits and then a Forstner bit for the tight holes I need to start with he angle drill (since the angle drill would not take 7/16 shank bits). This added time and costs, but means we should minimize the time without water to 1 day. The other decision I made was to build out the piping from the far end and work my way back to the source. This would allow me to make changes as I go without causing and radical rework to the pipes running to the rooms/fixtures.

Challenges:
The biggest challenge is getting the line that branch off the trunks in the kitchen ceiling to the master shower. There are 4 joists positioned several inches apart making hand and tool access difficult. After a great deal of planning, I decided to use bass elbow with a short nipple headed to shower and 11 inch nipples to get through the 2 narrowly spaced joists. I then used threaded Propex adapters so that I could leverage PEX for all but that short run. By running parallel piping, I knew I would wind up with a second set of trunks in the kitchen ceiling. One set would feed the master bathroom vanities, toilet and shower as well as the guest toilet and the other set would feed the the guest vanity and tub. Why not split the guest toliet off wiith rest of guest bathroom? Because the guest toilet is in the same wall as the master shower the builder ran 2 separate 1/2 inch cold lines into that wall with the hot. To simplify the pipes, I decided to run 3/4 inch cold into the wall and would then tee it to shower and guest toilet.

Progress:
April 22 I cut out the old master shower pies and valves and set up the new copper and valves I had pre-soldered. First issue was the space between the suds and the shower back wall was not big enough to slide my pre-made assembly in. I had to hack the stud and shorten the bottom copper feeds to get the new assembly in. A minor detour that took some extra time, but less time that trying to solder everything in place and worry about the foam kerdi boards the shower was made of. I only had to solder 2 connections the line from the transfer valve to the hand held elbow and the line to the rain heard. I used a backing baking to insulate the kerdi and dissipate the heat and made sure to aim the flame up from the bottom. The only issue was my pre-made assembly was about 1mm longer between the mixing and transfer valves, but I knew that ahead of time and not sure why as I measure the pipe and left an extra 1 inch (1/2 inch for insertion on both ends. Not a huge deal it just lowered the mixing valve a tad, still had plenty of clearance. It was a long day, 9 hours to get that done and pre-pipe the master vanity sink.

On April 23 we hit the point of no return. We turned off the water and cut out all the copper around the water heater and main to splice in the new PEX. Loosening the connection on the water heater was a pain. The plumber that installed it really made them tight. The rest was just time consuming, mounting the 1x3 so I had a place to secure my pre-made copper setup. Getting the copper mounted and then strapped so it would not move. The host side was a little wobbly in the back toward the HVAC because of the at section I ran to feed the humidifier, but that was easily stabilized by putting in a quick piece of 1x3 to strap the pipe to. Once everything was tied in I had to quickly pipe in the other master bathroom vanity and then ready for water. We had work about 7 hours at this point. I did one last walkthrough visual inspection to make sure everything looked good. I had left the valve to the hot water heater off as I want to test cold side first. I tuned the water on and we started checking. My biggest worry was the brass connections to get to the shower and as I feared the one connection had a small drip. Killed the water, drained the cold side and took the one fitting off. I have to own this one as when I went to remove the female pex adapter it came off to easily. I guess I did not tighten it enough. Cut out a small section of 3/4 cleaned the brass threads, this time used Blue Monster Tape and Real Tuff dope and made sure a new pex fitting was tightened as tight as I could get it. Put in a new section of pex and turned the cold water on. Perfect no leaks. Not I was nervous about the hot side. Opened up the vale to let hot start filling tank and waited. Ran around checking all connection and opening all angle stops and everything worked great. Even after taking pictures of the Moen Valves I still had the master shower valves ass-backward. Resolved the shower handles and had low flow form th3 handheld shower, quick trouble shooting determined clogged screen in the shower head, cleaned it and all good. All pex connections are leak free.

Update May 15, 2022:
Technically, all done and waiting on drywall contractor to close it all up. Hooked up the guest bathroom tub/shower so that all fixtures have water. I did redo 2 pipes that run up to the master vanity as I did not like how they were bent leaning against the 3/4 trunks that came up from the basement. I also redid the guest bathroom toilet line as it was at a weird angle coming out of the wall. That is the beauty of PEX, cut, expand and reconnect. Took maybe 15-20 minutes, but much cleaner and no rubbing and toilet line looks professional now. I still have the kitchen sink to do, but that will be a quick effort in a few weeks once everything else is closed up.

Update June 4:
We are all done, the walls and ceiling are closed, patched and painted. Life is back to normal and so far everything looks great and works fine. Time will tell. The company we used to repair the drywall and paint was phenomenal and I highly recommend them, link below. Next project is adding a while house water filter and finishing off the 2 short lines to the kitchen sink.


Retrospective:
Everyone asks me would I do it again. Short answer is yes. But it took 3 months why? If you are time constrained then hire a pro. If you like doing some DIY and want things done exactly how you want them then it is worth it. There were challenges and obstacles I had not foreseen, but all was a great learning experience and rewarding in the end. Also I did this exactly how I wanted it to be done as I know plumbers would have done whatever was the fastest way to get done. Sure a pro plumber would cringe at some of what I did, but it is all solid , adheres to Uponor install guidelines and anything a pro would not like will be hidden in a wall or ceiling.

So my early numbers are in and it looks like the DIY effort cost considerably more than I forecasted, but I am still ahead by about $3K. All the plumbers were going to just pull pex-B in place of the existing copper. They were all going to leave a small portion of existing copper at shower and tubs. I wound up replacing tub/shower valves, diverter and all pressure side copper as well as fabricated better copper routing around the hot water heater. Valves, copper and fittings probably were around $500. Right now it looks like I spent around $6K and bought about $1200-$1400 in tools as part of that. I had forecast it would cost me $3-4K and did not expect to buy so many tools. The least expensive plumber was $8700 (Pex-B) and only plumber offering Pex-A was comparable to what I did was $10.5K and did not promise what brand it would be. I may sell off some of the tools in a few months when I realize I may never use half of them.

All in all 3 months from start to finish then another 2 weeks waiting on drywall contractor.

I still have some pipe and fittings to return that I figure will be about $500-$700 in refunds. I also did not skimp, I probably could have saved a few hundred with materials taking some short cuts, but that is not me. Wife was hoping we saved more, and is questioning if it was worth it, I feel it was very worth it as I know every pipe and fitting. And like most things I do I over engineered it.

My next decision is whether to have the main from the meter replaced. From what I can tell no-one around me has had main issues, but would anyone even know based on how these pinholes start and don't leak a lot for a while.


Some reference links:
https://www.pexuniverse.com/types-of-pex-fittings
https://dengarden.com/home-improvement/Types-of-Plumbing-Fittings-Joining-PVC-and-Copper-Pipe
https://www.plumbingsupply.com/pipe-sizing-explained.html
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71UackAKDQS.pdf
http://s3.supplyhouse.com/product_files/Elkart-32970-How-To-Read-A-Copper-Tee.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/c/Got2Learn
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGIMKh92vaL0_Yc0u4GYhHA


Great plumbing communities:
https://www.plumbingforums.com/
https://terrylove.com/forums/index.php

Sources for product:
https://www.supplyhouse.com/


https://www.homedepot.com/p/rental/FLIR-COMMERCIAL-SYSTEMS-INC-Thermal-Camera-FLIR-i7/309006981
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07XP94548/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1

Tools I purchased for this project:
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B0195K8OT4/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Milwaukee-M12-FUEL-ProPEX-Expander-Tool-Kit-with-1-2-in-1-in-RAPID-SEAL-ProPEX-Expander-Heads-2532-22/314941935
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Milwaukee-1-in-PEX-and-Tubing-Cutter-48-22-4204/314870530
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Rotozip-5-5-Amp-Corded-1-4-in-Rotary-RotoSaw-Spiral-Saw-Tool-Kit-with-5-Accessories-SS355-10/203408190
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Husky-1-5-8-in-Inner-Outer-Reamer-and-Deburring-Tool-410-248-0111/308500885
https://www.homedepot.com/p/HDX-4-in-1-Fitting-Brush-80-717-111/204258915
https://www.homedepot.com/p/AUTOCUT-1-2-in-O-D-Pipe-Tubing-Cutter-ATC12/100090448
https://www.homedepot.com/p/AUTOCUT-3-4-in-O-D-Pipe-Tubing-Cutter-ATC34/100044495
https://www.homedepot.com/p/DEWALT-20-Volt-MAX-Cordless-3-8-in-Right-Angle-Drill-Driver-Tool-Only-DCD740B/203316372
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Makita-1-3-8-in-x-18-in-Steel-Ship-Auger-Bit-D-35972/206426820
https://www.homedepot.com/p/DIABLO-1-3-8-in-High-Speed-Steel-Forstner-Bit-FB-010/100098843
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B0009OAJKI/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1


Supplies:
https://www.homedepot.com/p/HDX-9-ft-x-12-ft-0-7-mil-Plastic-Drop-Cloth-6-Pack-DCHD-07-6/204711647
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B003NFEUFK/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B000RU6FXO/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Company to do drywall and painting:
https://paintinggroup.com/
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