A whole-home repipe is less disruptive than most people expect on the plumbing side, and more disruptive than they expect on the drywall side. This page walks the sequence in order so nothing in the middle of it comes as a surprise.
The timings describe a typical detached Calgary house. A condo, a large two-storey, or a house with a fully developed basement all move the numbers.
The sequence, start to finish
- Walkthrough and scope. Every fixture counted, every run traced, access points marked. This is where the written scope comes from.
- Permit. Pulled before work starts. The inspection at the end is tied to it.
- Protection and staging. Floors and furniture covered, a path from the door to the mechanical room cleared.
- Access cut. Holes opened at fixture drops, tees and direction changes inside finished walls. The loudest, dustiest day.
- New trunk lines run. Usually through the basement ceiling, from the mechanical room outward.
- Branch lines to each fixture group. Bathrooms, kitchen, laundry, hose bibs.
- Reconnection. Fixtures, water heater, and any softener or treatment equipment.
- Pressure test and flush. Before anything closes up, while every joint is still visible.
- Inspection. The permit closes here.
- Restoration. Drywall closed, taped, finished, and painted if that was in the scope.
The order matters for one reason: the pressure test comes before the walls close. A crew that patches first and tests second has removed its own ability to find a bad joint cheaply.
How long a repipe takes
| Stage | Typical duration | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Walkthrough and quote | One visit | Longer where the basement is finished and runs have to be inferred |
| Permit | A few days, in parallel | Does not usually delay a start date |
| Access and rough-in | 2 to 4 days | The plumbing itself. Loudest on day one |
| Pressure test and inspection | Within the same week | Water is normally back on each evening |
| Drywall and finishing | 3 days to 2 weeks | The widest variable, and the reason two quotes differ |
| Paint | Separate, often a separate trade | Frequently not included at all |
The plumbing is the short part. Anyone describing a whole-home repipe as a two-day job is describing the rough-in and leaving restoration to someone else. That is legitimate, but only if the scope says so.
What happens to the water supply
The main is shut off during working hours and normally restored at the end of each day, so the house stays habitable. There are usually one or two days where a specific bathroom or the laundry is out of service while its branch is run.
Confirm the daily on-off pattern in advance rather than assuming it, particularly in a household with small children or anyone working from home.
Living in the house during the work
Most households stay. The real difficulties are dust, noise through the working day, and losing the use of one room at a time.
Drywall dust travels further than anyone expects, through return-air vents, into closets, onto the tops of door frames. Ask how the work area is isolated and whether the furnace is shut down or its returns sealed during cutting. That one question separates a tidy job from three weeks of cleaning.
- Cover or clear the whole room being opened, not just the wall being cut
- Ask whether the furnace runs during drywall work
- Expect to lose one bathroom at a time rather than all of them
- Plan for finishers to arrive after the plumbers leave, sometimes days later
- Pets need somewhere else to be on cutting days
What is left behind
Old Poly B that can be reached is cut out. Pipe inside a wall or under a slab, where reaching it would mean demolishing more than the pipe is worth, is capped and abandoned in place. That is normal practice and not a defect.
What gets left behind on paper matters more: the permit and passed inspection, an invoice stating that all polybutylene supply pipe was replaced, the pipe and fitting system used, and photographs of the mechanical room. That paperwork is what an insurer asks for later.
What a careful crew does that a rushed one skips
- Traces and counts every fixture before pricing, rather than pricing by square footage
- Pulls the permit instead of treating inspection as optional
- Pressure tests with the joints still exposed
- Photographs the rough-in before the walls close, so there is a record of what is inside them
- Labels the shut-offs in the mechanical room
- States the restoration level in writing rather than saying drywall is included
- Writes the invoice so it proves what was actually done