I've got a 2200+ square ft. house and the hot water line under the slab is leaking. The house is 58 years old. Today, a plumber told me that the only way to remedy the situation is to re-route the line, but while I'm at it, I ought to re-route the cold water lines.

A few years ago, I had a similar problem with a leak under the kitchen floor. A cavern was dug under my foundation to fix that problem, but it won't work here.

The water heater is in the garage on one side of the house and the 2 bathrooms are on the other. I don't think going through the attic is really an option because mine is a relatively flat-roofed house.

Is there anything I should be looking out for? I know they're going to have to remove wall tile in the bathrooms to access the water lines. It sounds like quite a job and quite a mess!

Has anybody used EPipe, an epoxy liner for the inside of the pipes? The claim is you don't have to re-route, but use the existing pipe, thus not tearing your house apart.

Does anybody have any experience with an issue like this? What are the pitfalls I should be aware of. Pex pipe? Thousands of $$$?

Thank you fo any input.

Same happened to me and ended up running pex through the attic. I also have a shallow roof with little attic space, but they made it happen. Did have to cut some drywall to reach fittings, etc but that's cheap and easy to fix. I decided at the time not to replace my cold lines since they weren't leaking. I think I ended up paying less than $1,500.

We remodeled a house with copper and lead pipes (80 years old) and they did pex everywhere as dicey as it sounds they ran it through the attic. It flexes incredibly well. I was up there adding insulation the last few weeks and it really was very flexible and hardy despite my fears.

Pex a is very flexible and i have seen 3/8 pex a run through 1/2" copper pipe. But only really an option if a simple run to a single fixture.
Repipe with pex to attic and insulate and protect from rodents as possible. The sheetrock repair will be less than the slab and flooring repair.

EPipe I would guess that the water physics would work & be ideal for larger diameter pipes.
Typical residential supply pipes are 1/2-3/4" and plenty of bends to inhibit a new liner's path and of course severely reduce water pressure/volume.

As a huge fan of copper, even I must agree with others thus far that PEX (research the various types) that is VERY well insulated might be THE solution here.

Would be ideal if they can access just the genesis of the supply lines,
else the CODE required plumbing access hatch on rear of tub wall and even that area of non-tile wall if required.

Trenching & foundation performance disturbance to be avoided at all "costs" unless a sewage line solution.

Aggie Apple said:

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Same happened to me and ended up running pex through the attic. I also have a shallow roof with little attic space, but they made it happen. Did have to cut some drywall to reach fittings, etc but that's cheap and easy to fix. I decided at the time not to replace my cold lines since they weren't leaking. I think I ended up paying less than $1,500.

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Same here. Have had zero issues

Pex is probably the best option, just be mindful that it needs to be fully insulated to be protected from UV and you need to pay special attention to making sure there are zero rodents in your attic/house. If you are concerned about rodents, you should hard pipe.

Define Relatively Flat roofed, like no attic space that can be accessed by a person? With PEX, they don't have to have tons of space or even necessarily be in the attic at all.

They can fish PEX through with long runs to cross large areas. You can buy it in rolls vs sticks like regular pipe. You might need a few additional drywall patches in the ceiling to help, but I would bet that would be minimal unless you have to fish around corners or otherwise. You will have to have an access point where you need branch lines, but that is still a relatively small drywall patch.

Caliber said:

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Define Relatively Flat roofed, like no attic space that can be accessed by a person? With PEX, they don't have to have tons of space or even necessarily be in the attic at all.

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Thanks for your reply.

There is room to crawl along the center line of the roof -- maybe 5 ft. high or so. There's about 13 ft. to each of the outer walls on each side of the roof's center line.