Bought a mansion - having issues with water flow

[Westinghouse]

I bought a 1929 mansion (16,000 sq. ft) at an auction and it is in need of TLC. I have some water pressure issues, leaky pipes and cracked junctions on a 4 floor house (basement + 3 floors). I have been fixing a lot of leaks/holes by replacing the brass piping with copper and getting close. Still, good water flow has been spotty at times. Each time I open up the 2nd floor faucet, a bunch of black iron spits out before getting some water out. I haven't been able to see how the pressure is if I open up all the faucets as most have been capped off. 3rd floor shower is not giving great flow - maybe a gallon a minute. The well pump gives me in excess of 50 gallons per minute through 2" pipe. I have a relatively new 120gal pressure tank. Further upstream, the pipes are reduced to 1", 3/4 and then 1/2" to each bedroom. I personally don't think the current plumbing can handle 16 bathrooms of the house - but that is just an "uneducated" guess as I haven't been able to test all of the bathrooms at once

I'm somewhat savvy with construction but I'm kind of way over my head with this project. I was told that I should just start from scratch and pull out all of the plumbing and put in new. It originally scared me because of all of the plaster/mesh/steel ibeams that have to be dealt with but a crew of 6 came and gave me a reasonable quote - I just provide the parts. They work mainly with copper (as they are from NYC) but my friend who owns a big plumbing company told me it's all PEX up where I am (suburbs an hour from NYC). I'm trying to make better sense of this and wondering WHAT SHOULD I DO???? Naturally copper is far more expensive but PEX is easier to work with and easy to fix. Do they even have 2" pex?? I've never had to deal with a complex system as this.

The other alternative they mentioned is that just to fix what is broken, replace all of the valves and "hope" that I get good flow - at 1/10th of the replace price...

Thanks for your advice!!

 

[Terry]

I think we need some pictures 800 pixels or less so that we can dream of winning the lottery. 16 bathrooms?
I have some information here, but would need to expand the charts for the amount of bathrooms that you have.
https://terrylove.com/watersize.htm

PEX on a repipe is a lot easier and less likely to see the home go up in flames when a flame from a torch lights up old dries wood, and keep in mind that your water is probably off at this point. I've done plenty of copper on new construction where the wood still needs drying out, but on repipes the dryness is an added concern. I really good job sizes back from the furthest points and works it's way back to the source.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Jadnashua]

An old house is likely to have at least some galvanized piping in it. That might be the source of the black specs. Galvanized pipe tends to rust from the inside, closing the pipe off considerably before it eventually starts to leak. Those rust specs can also clog up aerators, shower heads, and valve cartridges, if there are any newer fixtures.

 

[Master Plumber Mark]

Their is no way you are going to need 2 inch copper or pex water line in your house.
A 2 inch line is big enough for probably a 6 story apartment building or larger...

1 inch is usually large enough for about any size mansion in most areas...maybe 1 1/4
but that would probably do a 7 bathroom home.... or more....

copper is really not all that much more expensive to plumb with... if you got a good labor
price from someone to do it all in copper its not gonna bust the bank...
I doubt it would even be 1 grand more in money

good luck
..

 

[Westinghouse]

OK - here are some pics. I have many more but don't want to inundate the thread.
The house was built by the Westinghouse family and later owned by Zsa Zsa Gabor and her sisters/mothers.
I was lucky (or should I say unlucky) to be the 6th owner of this by accident but now I have to deal with my "indiscretions".

My water smells of horrible H2S so I think I have to put in a chlorinator. I guess I have to plan a PEX installation that could handle some chlorine - if there is such a thing. I had a pump company check my well and they said I was pumping in excess of 45 gal / min. It's currently 2" copper (or brass) into my boiler room - then just a crazy mish-mosh of pipes in there of all sizes. I did see some galvanized nipples on the ends by the faucets and toilets but don't recall seeing any other. It's almost all brass I believe. Crazy it as may seem - the last owner put in a 40 gallon water heater in there! I'm switching to on-demand 199k btu water heaters - I wonder if 2 in parallel would be enough? I don't think I would have more than 8 showers on at the same time ever. Sorry for jumping all over the place with my descriptions! My mind is not working too well trying to be a wanna-be GC with no experience with a large project.

So since I posted the original question, I THINK I would change the 2" brass pipe to 2" PEX which would go into a manifold with 3/4" outlets (I would do 1" if I could) and reduce that to 1/2" at each bathroom. Does that seem reasonable?

Here's the kicker.... My brother-in-law has a friend in NYC and they do plumbing in those big apartments. The owner came up and inspected the house and came back with this crazy number - $13k and he would repipe the entire house in either copper or PEX but I provide all of the parts. It's not a reasonable number but I guess because it's a friend, he's doing me a once in a lifetime favor... I get the feeling he would just repipe as originally designed but with larger diameter in some places - BUT he is willing to allow me to have some input. I think I would like to run a parallel system (don't know if that is a right word - but meaning I would run large pipe all the way up and each floor would come out at 1" and reduce at each bathroom). Am I correct in thinking this?

Sorry for the complicated setup - Any suggestions would be super appreciative (you can't imagine how much I would be!!!!)

And if anyone reading is in the NY/NJ area and wants to see this headache, my doors are open

Oh yeah - I'm not blowing smoke - here are some pics of the home below. All the bathrooms have been gutted and awaiting new piping before retiling.

I think we need some pictures 800 pixels or less so that we can dream of winning the lottery. 16 bathrooms?
I have some information here, but would need to expand the charts for the amount of bathrooms that you have.
https://terrylove.com/watersize.htm

PEX on a repipe is a lot easier and less likely to see the home go up in flames when a flame from a torch lights up old dries wood, and keep in mind that your water is probably off at this point. I've done plenty of copper on new construction where the wood still needs drying out, but on repipes the dryness is an added concern. I really good job sizes back from the furthest points and works it's way back to the source.

 

[Reach4]

My water smells of horrible H2S so I think I have to put in a chlorinator. I guess I have to plan a PEX installation that could handle some chlorine - if there is such a thing. I had a pump company check my well and they said I was pumping in excess of 45 gal / min.

That is a very big flow. You might cut that back if your pump gets replaced.

Regarding the H2S, I suggest posting into the softener forum. https://terrylove.com/forums/index.php?forums/water-softener-forum-questions-and-answers.22/ That also serves for filtering discussions.

Do get alab test performed on your raw water . A free one can be very expensive. With city water, maybe ask the water department what they can tell you. Also, get the Hach 5-B hardness test. This can be used for planning now, and it can be used to check the effectiveness of your softener.

The NLT/watercheck tests are well respected, they will probably cost over $200 with shipping. That may fit your budget well. Free water tests can be very expensive. ;-)

Here are a couple other lab tests I would consider to be worthwhile:
http://envirotestkits.com/product/safe-home-select-drinking-water-test-kit/ $99 (on sale at the moment) has the main things you need for softener etc. Note that this offering has home bacteria test. For any bacteria test to be meaningful, you have to follow proper sampling techniques including sterilizing the faucet. If you care about the coliform test results, care needs to be taken in sampling. With city water, you would not really need a bacteria test.
http://www.ugra.org/images/pdf/sampling_handout.pdf is one description of a method to avoid contaminating the sample.

http://e-watertest.com/order-water-test-kit/ This was the first water test I got. Now that KarLabs has closed, they are looking good to me again. This test includes tests for things that are seldom detected.

You might be better with a backwashing iron+H2S filter. Chlorine injection can be good to, and the injector is usually best before a contact tank. Then you can remove the chlorine with a GAC (granulated activated carbon/charcoal) backwashing filter.

Consider well sanitizing. https://terrylove.com/forums/index....izing-extra-attention-to-4-inch-casing.65845/ is my writeup. If the H2S is mainly in the hot water, that can be fixed with a different anode in the WH. I have a powered anode, which protects like magnesium but does not contribute to H2S production.

 

[Jadnashua]

With the large size and lengthy runs on your pipes, you should seriously consider a hot water recirculation system. Plus, after running all of the piping, you really want to insulate the hot water lines and the return line(s).

The winter-time cold water inlet temperature becomes a major consideration on how much temperature rise and thus GPM you can get with a tankless system. You really need to determine your worst case scenario, then add up how many tankless systems you require. I'd pick an area where you could add one or two more, and plan your gas service accordingly. Note, your gas utility bill is often based on your peak demand, even though you may not be using much at any one moment on average. A couple of tankless (or more) systems can result in a much larger base billing cost, so take that into consideration. Plus, they will require at least annual servicing to remove any mineral deposits. Also, some tankless systems cannot be used with a recirculation system, and that means that the time to attain hot water at long distances with large supply pipes can be excessive. WIthout one in my small condo, it can take a minute...throw in extra floors and longer distances with larger pipes, and it can take much longer. The simplicity of a tank has its merits. The specs on most tankless systems assume 50-degree inlet temperatures. Where I live, 33-degree temps are not uncommon in the middle of winter. Say a system was able to provide 120-degree water in the summer, that might mean 103-degree water in the winter at the same flow rate just because the incoming water is colder. Throw in some cooling along the way, and you begin to see the issue. AN alternative might be to place tankless systems closer to their point of use, but you may need more of them, and then you have the gas supply and venting to deal with.

One of the harder things when running pex is to prevent it from kinking (a reel to unspool it smoothly is important) and to keep it from getting scored when pulling it through a hole. There are three types of PEX, with type-A being the most flexible and with the strongest cross-linking that allows it to bend into smaller radii, and maybe as important, able to be repaired without a fitting should you kink it. Types -B and -C, if you kink it, you have to cut out the kink and insert a fitting. With type -A, a heat gun can restore the pipe after kinking. Type -A also can use use expansion fittings which has less dynamic pressure loss because the ID is larger through the fitting.

 

[Maximus_Slime]

Cool!!

13K labor seems like a reasonable price for a copper repipe on house that large, assuming it's quality work. I echo other's comments on the fire hazard with soldering. But a spray bottle to dampen everything and proper shielding should be able to mitigate that. And would you really want plastic pipes in a mansion??

Is the friend supposed to give you list off all the materials you need to buy, or add it to the cost and he purchases?

During the great recession, 2011, I was given a quote of 7K for copper, in a more pedestrian 2 bath 2K SF house.