pipe reline

[peltaz]

I am curious about the pros and cons of pipe relining. There doesn't seem to be a great deal of previous discussion here. I don't know all that much about it other than the pipes are sandblasted and then coated inside with an epoxy. My house was built in 1938. Half of the house is 10 year old copper and the other is still galvanized. I am getting ready to attack the galvanized half for obvious reasons. I just haven't decided between repiping with pex or checking out the reline. I guess I am curious about which would be more cost effective and how long after the reline would I need to repipe. Thanks as always.

 

[Redwood]

I remain a skeptic of any relining done on galv. supply lines.
No one has ever convinced me that the complete coverage can be verified.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[NHmaster]

Besides Redwoods concerns, the sandblasting process very often opens up rust holes and blasts through the pipe requiring replacement of those sections at additional cost, and many times the cleaning process will not be able to get into the smaller branch lines. As far as I can tell, for residential work it is probably less expensive to re-pipe the house in Pex and have all new pipes.

 

[peltaz]

Thanks. Like most things there just isn't an easy fix.

 

[cougfan]

I worked for a for a company that did epoxy relining,more of a large commercial application than a residential application.The sand blasting can scour the pipes out so that there are leaks,especially at the threads,the epoxy can close up at tees and nineties,Takes a lot of feel to do the job when they're sanding and putting in the shots of epoxy.

 

[Redwood]

Cougfan Would you say our concerns are valid?

 

[cougfan]

Yeah I would,like I said this is more of a commercial application for large hotels and apartments that don.t want to tear up the walls and go through a large repipe,The other problem is if a repair or add is made to copper lined pipes the heat from soldering turns the epoxy to goo and if you don't know it's there it could be nasty.I can't see it being economically viable on residential.It takes several days to do the job,you have to dry the pipes and then sand,then redry the pipes and flash sand then shoot the epoxy and let dry for twenty four hours and then hook up the shower valves again and then test for leaks.So two or three days at least for a residential application,so pretty close to a repipe anyway and this fellow was half done anyway,the only savings wold be in drywall repair.Sorry this one got long.