Most residential repipes take two to five days. A small single-story home with accessible piping can finish in two; a larger two-story house, or one with slab-routed lines requiring rerouting, runs closer to a week including drywall repair.

What Determines the Timeline

  • Home size and bathroom count. More fixtures means more runs.
  • Single versus multi-story. Vertical runs between floors add complexity.
  • Access. Attic and crawlspace access is straightforward. Slab-routed piping usually means rerouting through walls and attic instead of cutting concrete — more work, but far less disruptive than the alternative.
  • Pipe material and routing method. PEX is faster to run than rigid copper because it flexes around obstacles.
  • Wall repair. Access holes need patching, texturing, and painting. This is often the longest phase, and texture matching in Albuquerque homes takes some care.
  • Permits and inspection scheduling.

How the Days Actually Go

Day one: protect the house, open access points, begin running new lines. Days two and three: complete the runs, tie in fixtures, pressure test. Then inspection where required, followed by drywall patching, texture, and paint.

Living in the House

This is the practical question. Most homeowners stay put. Water is shut off during active work hours but restored at the end of each day, so you have water overnight. We coordinate which fixtures are offline and when. It is dusty and disruptive during the day, but it is not a move-out project for most homes.

What Good Work Looks Like

Floor and furniture protection, access holes cut cleanly and minimally rather than opportunistically, full pressure testing before walls close, permits pulled, and drywall restored properly rather than patched roughly. Ask specifically who handles the wall repair — some contractors leave it to you, and that changes the real cost significantly.

Worth Doing at the Same Time

Replace angle stops and supply lines, add a pressure reducing valve if pressure is high, and consider a water softener to protect the new system from hard water scale.

Contact B. Carlson about repiping in Albuquerque. Financing available.