Whole-house repipe is the nuclear option for failing water supply pipework. Instead of repeated spot repairs (which cost $400-700 each and inevitably the next failure is somewhere worse), you replace the entire supply system in one job. Done with modern PEX, the new system has a 50+ year design life with no failure modes from corrosion or chloride pitting.
Why people get repipes
- Multiple pinhole copper failures. The most common driver. After 2-3 pinholes in 12-24 months, the rest of the original copper is the same age and chemistry, and likely to fail in the next 2-5 years. Repipe stops the cycle.
- Galvanised steel pipework still in service. Very old Gold Coast homes (60+ years) sometimes still have original galvanised steel water pipes. These corrode internally, restrict flow, and eventually fail. Replacement is overdue.
- General age past 40-50 years. Even non-failing pipework reaches end of design life. Pre-emptive repipe avoids future emergencies.
- Major renovation. If you are already renovating and walls are open, replacing original copper as a project add-on is much cheaper than waiting to do it later.
- Repeated low-pressure complaints. Old galvanised pipework develops internal scale and restricts flow. Replacement restores full pressure.
Cost ranges 2026 Gold Coast
- 2-bedroom unit / townhouse: $3,500-7,000
- 3-bedroom freestanding house: $4,500-9,500
- 4-bedroom freestanding house: $5,500-12,000
- 5+ bedroom or two-storey: $7,000-18,000
- Acreage with outbuildings: $8,000-20,000+ (longer runs, additional supply lines)
- Apartment unit: $4,000-9,000 plus body corp coordination
Cost varies with house size, accessibility, two-storey vs single, and whether wall reinstatement is included in the quote.
What is included
- Survey of existing system
- Planning of new PEX routing
- Running new PEX in parallel with existing
- Switching fixtures one at a time to minimise water-off time
- Pressure testing the new system
- Decommissioning old pipework
- Compliance certification
- Workmanship guarantee on the new system
What may cost extra
- Wall, ceiling or floor reinstatement after access (sometimes plasterer / tiler / painter sub-cost)
- Reroute around structural features that constrain PEX path
- Pressure-limiting valve upgrade at meter if existing is at end of life
- Hot water unit reconnection if HWU is being relocated as part of repipe
- Isolation valve upgrades at each fixture (modern best practice)
How long it takes
2-5 days on-site typically, depending on house size and access. Most repipes done in 3 days for a single-storey 3-bedroom home. Water is off for the change-over period (typically 4-8 hours per day) and we coordinate around shower times.
PEX vs copper for the new system
We almost always recommend PEX for repipes on the Gold Coast. Reasons:
- No corrosion failure mode. PEX is plastic, no salt-air pitting, no chloride attack, no electrolytic corrosion.
- Flexible install. Snakes through wall cavities without joints in inaccessible areas, reducing future failure points.
- Lower cost. Material is cheaper than copper, install is faster.
- 50+ year design life. Outlasts most other house components.
Copper is fine but typically 20-40% more expensive than PEX for the same install. Some clients prefer copper for aesthetic reasons (visible runs in garage or basement) or historic compatibility.
What life do you get from a repipe
50+ years for PEX, possibly longer. The connecting fittings and isolation valves have shorter life (15-25 years) but are easy to replace as needed. After a repipe you should not need significant supply pipework work again in your lifetime for the house.
Insurance implications
Some insurers offer reduced premium or excess on homes with documented recent repipes. Keep the install certificate, plumber's invoice, and photos. Useful for premium negotiation and for sale of the house later.
Adding value to the sale
A documented repipe in an older home (30+ years) is a real selling point. Buyers' pre-purchase inspections often flag old original copper as a maintenance concern. A repipe takes the concern off the table. Worth mentioning in sale listings and providing documentation to buyers.
How we phase a repipe so you keep water on
Most homeowners panic at the thought of a repipe because they assume the water gets shut off for a week. That is not how we run them. We snake new PEX through the wall cavities, ceiling space and subfloor in parallel with the existing copper, all while the old system stays in service. You shower, cook and run the laundry as normal through the changeover period. Only when the new run is pressure-tested and ready do we switch a fixture across, and we do that one bathroom at a time, usually in 2-3 hour windows. On a 3-bedroom Robina or Mudgeeraba slab-on-ground house we typically have full water off for no more than 4 hours on day 2 and 4 hours on day 3, scheduled mid-morning when nobody is showering. Two-storey homes in Tallai or Bonogin take an extra day because of the riser runs, but the same staged approach keeps disruption minimal. Holiday-letting owners in Burleigh, Palm Beach and Currumbin sometimes prefer to vacate the property between guests and have us run the job in one push, which knocks 1-2 days off the timeline. We talk through the schedule at quote stage so you can plan around it. The job is invasive but it does not have to be chaotic.
Access points we open and what gets reinstated
A repipe is partly a plumbing job and partly a wall and ceiling access job. Typical access points on a single-storey home are 4-8 small ceiling cuts in the roof space for top-down runs, 3-6 wall cavity cuts behind vanities and laundry units where we can use existing access, and 2-3 floor or skirting cuts where slab penetrations are needed. We mark every access point on a plan before we start and minimise cuts in finished areas like hallways and feature walls. On two-storey homes we add 2-4 access points around the stair void for vertical runs. Most of our quotes include the plumbing access cuts but separate out the reinstatement work, which is usually a plasterer at $80-140 per patch, plus paint touch-up at $200-500 for the room. Tile reinstatement in bathrooms is more expensive ($400-1,200 per access point depending on tile match availability) which is why we plan tile access through existing inspection hatches or behind vanities whenever possible. For older Mermaid Waters and Paradise Point homes with original feature tiles we can no longer match, we sometimes recommend timing the repipe with a planned bathroom reno so the tile work happens once.
What to do with the old pipework after
Once the new PEX system is commissioned, the old copper is decommissioned but not necessarily removed. We cap and isolate the abandoned runs at both ends, label them at the meter and at any visible joints, and leave them in place inside walls and ceilings. Removing the old copper would mean opening up significantly more wall and ceiling space, doubling the reinstatement cost for no functional benefit. The copper sits inert in the cavity. Some clients ask us to recover external runs (garage walls, subfloor space, exposed runs) for scrap copper value, which is fine, copper is currently worth $9-12 per kg at scrap merchants. A typical 3-bed yields 15-25 kg of recoverable copper, so $150-300 in scrap value at best. We deduct it from the invoice if you want us to handle the recovery. More importantly, we update your as-built drawings to show the new PEX layout and the decommissioned copper runs, so any future plumber or renovator knows what is live and what is dead. We hand over the drawings with the QBCC Form 4 compliance certificate at completion.
Repipe combined with other upgrades
Because the walls are partially open and we are already on-site for several days, a repipe is the cheapest time to bundle in other plumbing upgrades. Common add-ons we run during repipe jobs at marginal extra cost include a new pressure-limiting valve at the meter ($300-500 incremental, almost always worth doing on older homes with no PLV or a failed one), individual isolation valves at every fixture ($40-80 per fixture, makes future repairs much easier), modern mixer rough-ins to replace old crook 1970s gate valves ($150-300 per fixture for the rough-in body), a hot water unit upgrade if the existing unit is past 8 years and due anyway, and outdoor tap upgrades with new hose bib assemblies and vacuum breakers. We see clients regret skipping these add-ons more often than we see them regret doing them, because the labour cost to come back later for a single fixture upgrade is much higher than doing it while the wall is open. The exception is bathroom fixture upgrades, those usually align with a bathroom reno rather than a repipe, so we leave the existing tapware in place and let the future renovator choose the new spec.
The pre-repipe checklist we run before quoting
Before we quote a repipe, we run a structured assessment to confirm whether full repipe is the right call or whether targeted spot repairs would suffice. The checklist covers visible inspection of every exposed pipe run (garage, subfloor, roof space, laundry, hot water unit area), pressure testing at the meter and at multiple fixtures to identify any existing pressure-side leaks, water meter overnight test to detect any continuous-flow leak in buried or concealed runs, review of any documented leak history from the homeowner, sampling of pipe wall thickness at accessible spots using ultrasonic thickness gauge for copper systems (we can read remaining wall thickness through paint), and inspection of any wet stains, calcification deposits or paint blistering that indicates a slow leak we cannot see directly. The output of the assessment is a written report classifying the system as one of four states, sound (no repipe needed, just maintain), monitor (specific spots flagged for re-inspection in 2-5 years), partial repipe candidate (one or two failing zones can be replaced without full house scope), or full repipe candidate (system-wide degradation warrants whole-house replacement). The assessment costs $400-650 depending on house size and is fully credited against the cost of any repipe work we go on to perform. Worth doing before committing to the larger spend, particularly on borderline cases where you have had only one or two leaks and could potentially get another 5-10 years from the existing copper with targeted spot repairs.