Help your new plumbing pay for itself

By: Alexrussell Jan 23, 2007

The price of copper has skyrocketed, and it's not an all bad thing. There are great alternatives to copper when it comes to re-piping your home, so there's no real need to pay any premiums there. But why not take advantage with the old copper pipe you're going to replace?

Scrap metal recyclers in Seattle, where I am, are paying upwards of $1.75 or so per pound for scrap copper. This is what they'll pay you for what you'll probably throw away anyway. Why not take advantage? If you're lucky enough to have all your waste lines in old copper pipe and plan to gut the house anyway, so much the better. Once you get higher than 1-inch diameter pipe, you'd be surprised how heavy that suff is. The smallest waste lines are 1.5. Ka-ching!

Tagged : copper, plumbing, pipe, water, repipe

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Tell me about it, we recently replaced some copper sections in our house to make way for a new shower in the basement, and I *almost* gave in and replaced everything with the new plastic style. As for ease of use and convenience, the new stuff wins hands down, it is simply cut and jam together. Viola. Simplicity! I see contracters with only plastic on their roofs, and they know the score too. They save a ton on labor because it is so much faster to install the plastic lines. No chemicals, no heat, just fit together.

We STILL have leaky joints. I am considering scrapping all that we have done and replacing it with plastic still.