Real projects. Proven results.

Property-Wide Polybutylene Repipe

A phased, building-by-building repipe from polybutylene to PEX across a large Phoenix apartment community

The Problem

This property was originally plumbed with polybutylene piping — a plastic water line material widely installed in multifamily construction through the 1980s and early 1990s. Polybutylene has a well-known industry reputation for breaking down over time and failing, often without warning, which is why it was the subject of a large class-action settlement decades ago and why most owners of polybutylene-plumbed properties eventually replace it rather than wait for it to fail unit by unit.

For a property this size — more than 30 buildings, each multiple stories — that’s not a small job. Repiping a single occupied unit means opening walls, running new supply lines, replacing valves, and patching drywall, all while residents are living there. Doing that across 500+ units, all at once, simply isn’t realistic for an occupied community.

The Solution

Rather than a single disruptive project, the repipe was run in phases, building by building and unit-cluster by unit-cluster, over roughly 16 months starting in mid-2017. Each phase included:

• Removing the old polybutylene piping and installing new PEX water lines
• New copper stub-outs and quarter-turn angle stops at every fixture
• New ice-maker boxes and refrigerator water lines
• New shower valves where needed
• Full drywall patch and repair in every unit touched

Billing was phased the same way the work was — invoiced out building by building as each group of units was completed, rather than as one lump sum — so the capital cost could be budgeted and paid down in stages alongside the work itself instead of hitting all at once.

The Results

By the time the main phase wrapped up, roughly 535 units across the property had been fully repiped, at a total investment of about $2.24 million — right around $4,200 per unit once you include the piping, valves, and drywall restoration.

The real proof of value shows up in what happened afterward. Routine plumbing spend at the property — leak repairs, diagnostic calls, everything outside the repipe project itself — dropped from roughly $25,000-$28,000 a year in the first few years after the project to under $7,000 a year by the mid-2020s. Leak-related service calls stayed rare and inexpensive the entire time, with no recurrence of the kind of chronic, unpredictable failures polybutylene is known for.

That’s the outcome a property-wide repipe is supposed to deliver: instead of an aging liability that could fail unit by unit for years to come, the property converted a known risk into a one-time, phased capital project — and years later, the plumbing side of the operating budget reflects it.