Repiping in Bahama, NC

What happens when you call

You'll be connected with an independent local plumber who covers the Bahama area. Expect questions about the age of the house, whether you're on a private well, where the pressure tank sits and which fixtures have trouble. Before quoting, the plumber typically looks at the exposed piping in the crawl space, the tank and any treatment equipment, and checks for mixed materials where additions were built.

If a repipe makes sense, the plumber plans the new routes, schedules short shutoffs and handles the permit. A whole house usually takes several working days.

Cost factors

• Size and layout, including additions that were plumbed separately
• Distance from the well and whether the buried line to the house is replaced
• Crawl space conditions, which affect how quickly the work goes
• Pipe material and how many fittings the layout needs
• Treatment equipment such as filters or softeners to reconnect

Bahama's homes and water

Bahama grew up as a farming and railroad village, and the houses and stores along Bahama Road include 19th- and early-20th-century buildings in the Bahama Village Historic District. Reliable year-built figures for the area weren't available, so it's hard to say how much of the housing is older, but farmhouses that have been updated over generations often carry pipe from several eras.

The area sits outside Durham city limits, and the City generally requires annexation before extending water or sewer, so most properties here use private wells and are not on municipal sewer. Lake Michie is close by, but it supplies City customers, not Bahama homes. Durham County Environmental Health permits and tests private wells. Its county-wide data, compiled by UNC, shows manganese above the EPA health advisory in 38% of tested wells and iron above its advisory in about 23%, which matters because mineral-heavy or corrosive water affects how long copper lasts. In the same data, 2.2% of tested wells exceeded the lead action level; on a well system, lead at the tap can come from older plumbing materials, so it's another reason to test.

Plumbing permits for unincorporated Durham County come from Durham City-County Building & Safety, which covers replacement work and private water lines.

Checklist before the visit

• Know where the pressure tank and well head are
• Have any recent well water test results on hand
• List leaks and repairs from the last few years
• Clear access to the crawl space entrance