Obsolete Pipe Sizes & Fabrication in San Jose, CA
San Jose has a lot of old housing, and old housing has pipe in sizes and threads that the supply houses stopped stocking a long time ago. When a fitting on one of those systems fails, the usual answer from the counter is that the part has not been made in forty years, and the usual answer from a contractor is a quote to repipe the whole run.
Often that is not necessary. We cut, thread, and fabricate to match what is already in the wall. That means a failed section can be replaced with something that actually mates to the pipe either side of it, and a repair can stay a repair instead of turning into a project you were not planning this year.
If the rest of the run is closed up with rust and you are going to be back here in eight months, we will say that plainly, and a repipe is the better spend. What we will not do is tell you a repipe is the only option because matching the old size is inconvenient.
When people call us about this
- A supply house says the fitting or pipe size is no longer manufactured
- A single failed section in an otherwise sound old system
- Odd threads or sizes in a pre-war or early post-war house
- A previous contractor quoted a full repipe for what looks like a small failure
- Repairs to systems that have been patched with mismatched materials over the decades
Questions we get asked
Why can nobody else get the part?+
Because pipe standards changed and manufacturers stopped making the old sizes and thread forms once demand fell away. The part is not impossible to make. It is impossible to buy off a shelf. A supply house counter can only sell you what is in the catalog, so the honest answer they can give you is that it has not been made in forty years. The answer a lot of contractors give after that is a quote to replace the whole run, because matching the old size is inconvenient, not because the run needs replacing. Fabricating to match is a workshop problem, not a purchasing one, and it is work we still do.
Is a fabricated repair as good as new pipe?+
For the section we replace, yes. It is new material, properly cut, threaded and joined, and it will outlast the pipe either side of it. What it does not do is make the rest of the run any younger, and we think it is important to be straight about that. If we replace three feet of a fifty-year-old line, you have a sound three feet and forty-seven feet that are exactly as old as they were yesterday. That is often precisely the right thing to do, particularly when the rest of the run is in decent condition. It is the wrong thing to do when the whole system is failing, and we will say so.
How do I know whether to repair or repipe?+
Count the visits. One failure in an otherwise healthy system is a repair and should be treated as one. A second in the same house within a year or two starts to look like a pattern. A third means the system is telling you something and the arithmetic has changed: four more repairs at intervals costs more than doing it once, and each one comes with its own disruption. The other signal is gradual decline rather than sudden failure: pressure that has faded over years, or discolored water first thing in the morning, points to the condition of the pipe itself rather than to one bad spot. We would rather you spent the money once.
Further reading: Do You Actually Need a Repipe, or Just a Repair?.
Describe it to us and we will tell you what it is.
Phone consultations do not cost anything. If it turns out to be something you can sort out yourself, we will say so.
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Obsolete Pipe Sizes & Fabrication across the South Bay
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