Every supply line in the house
Replacing all the hot and cold supply lines in one job gives every fixture new pipe together, rather than patching the system leak by leak over the years.
Repiping and Water Line Replacement in Tampa
Supply lines may be near the end of their life if leaks keep recurring, the water runs discolored or the pressure is weak at several taps. The plumber you hire can replace the lines from inside the house out to the meter.
Read on for the repipe options, the Tampa Water Department’s service line inventory and the letters it sends, and which City permit covers a repipe.
Choosing how much to replace
One section at a time
If the problem sits in one run, say the lines to a single bathroom or a stretch through the garage, the plumber you hire can swap only that part of the system.
The service line from the meter
Outside the house, the service line brings water in from the meter. It is its own job, separate from the plumbing indoors, and it can be replaced without a full repipe.
The Tampa service line inventory
The Tampa Water Department keeps a public inventory of service lines at tampa.gov/KnowYourPipes, with each line marked non-lead, galvanized requiring replacement, lead, or not yet identified. The department says it has not used lead as a standard piping material.
Residents whose service line still needs to be identified get a letter every year until its status is updated. The customer-owned part connects the water meter to the property, and you can identify it with the City’s online form or by contacting a plumber.
A letter about a galvanized line
A Galvanized Service Line Requiring Replacement letter means the customer-owned part of your service line is galvanized. Galvanized steel itself poses no lead risk, but the City’s records cannot confirm that lead piping never existed upstream, so Environmental Protection Agency rules require it to tell the owner the line must be replaced.
That replacement runs from the meter to the house, and the plumber you hire can give you an estimate for it.
The permit for a repipe
Tampa issues a plumbing trade permit, with no plan review, both for re-piping the water distribution inside a house and for replacing the water service outside the structure.
A repipe can be a good time to look at the heater too, so see the water heater page, and leaks in the meantime are on the leak detection page. The home page lists everything else.
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