When an apartment community or condominium association decides it is time to repipe, the decision is rarely about pipes alone. It is a juggling act that touches cash flow, vacancy exposure, tenant goodwill, insurance requirements, and the unglamorous physics of water under pressure. I have stood in stairwells at 6:30 a.m. with a clipboard, a foreman, and a property manager who has 140 units to keep habitable and a renovation budget that does not bend. The conversation always circles the same axis: where to give on schedule, where to give on cost, and where you simply cannot give at all.
This piece unpacks how to think through that balancing act. Not a theoretical framework, but the practical levers that decide whether a multi-family repipe lands on budget and on time, or drifts into that costly middle ground where nothing seems to line up.
The real constraint is occupancy
Most owners start with line items: material cost, labor estimates, permits. Those matter, but occupancy is the constraint that shapes every other choice. If you are 98 percent occupied with strong rent collections, your tolerance for long water shutdowns and invasive wall openings is thin. If you are mid-turn on a large block of units and holding concessions, you may have more room to push for speed.
Occupancy determines sequence. In buildings above 90 percent occupied, I favor a vertical stack-by-stack approach with short, predictable daily outages. You move like a zipper up each riser, two to three units per day, with the old piping isolated and the new PEX or copper tied into domestic lines before nightfall. The finish crew follows within 24 to 48 hours to close walls and paint. Residents see crews twice, not for a month.
If occupancy dips below 85 percent, a corridor-by-corridor or building-by-building blitz can be efficient. You can clear out an entire wing, perform longer shutdowns, and accelerate rough-in with fewer daily mobilizations. It is cheaper per fixture and faster per linear foot, but it requires tolerance for temporarily offline units and higher vacancy carrying costs.
The key judgment call: what costs more in your case, labor and overhead, or vacancy and resident churn? A 200-unit property losing two points of occupancy for six weeks can shed the equivalent of a small crew’s wages. That math should sit on the same page as your vendor’s Repipe Plumbing estimate.
Permit reality and code variability
Local code officials are not obstacles, they are variables. Inspectors in some cities allow wall-by-wall sign-offs and same-day approvals when the team has a track record. Others require full-stack inspections, firestopping certifications, and advance scheduling that locks a crew into waiting windows. Those rules determine staging, and staging affects both time and cost.
Plan reviews are your early warning system. If the jurisdiction flags anti-scald requirements, dielectric isolation, or low-lead fixture certifications, handle them before materials hit the site. I have seen a five-day delay turn into three weeks because someone ordered brass stop valves that could not satisfy a state’s lead-free standard. Material substitution midstream is painful, and it breaks trust.
In buildings with mixed-use fire separations, firestopping becomes the long pole. You cannot leave penetrations open behind drywall, and many inspectors insist on named systems with tested assemblies. Budget for the certified installer if your plumbing sub does not carry that credential. It saves failed inspections and return trips that chew through the calendar.
Pipe material is schedule dressed as chemistry
Owners often frame the material choice as a lifetime cost debate: copper’s longevity versus PEX’s flexibility. In multi-family repipes, material is also a calendar. Copper requires more precise routing, more open walls, longer brazing time, and more skilled labor per joint. PEX speeds rough-in and reduces opening sizes, which makes residents happier and finish work cheaper. Both have a place.
Use copper when the building has high hot water recirculation temperatures, aggressive disinfectant residuals, or a history of rodent activity in cavities that might threaten exposed plastic. Use PEX where you need speed through dense occupancies, where wall thickness is tight, and where budget is sensitive to finish costs. Either way, specify components as a system. Mixing brands of fittings, manifolds, and pipe to chase a short-term price can quiet a budget and ruin your warranty.
Material delivery timing is another schedule lever. Order long-lead specialty fittings, mixing valves, fire collars, and access panels early. I block a small storage container onsite for pipe and fixtures, and I control release by stack. The number of projects slowed by a missing 1-inch ball valve is embarrassing industry-wide. The fix is inventory discipline.
Scope clarity prevents the thousand paper cuts
Repipes fail on fuzzy edges. Everyone agrees on domestic hot and cold, then gets surprised by fridge lines, ice makers, hose bibbs, tub spouts, mixing valves, shower trim compatibility, or abandoned loops that still feed a single sink behind a wall. The surprise items clog schedules. They demand additional wall openings, unexpected shutoffs, or extra materials that no one priced.
Walk every unit in a representative sample before signing the contract. Not ten doors in the same stack, but a cross-section of plan types, renovations, and known problem areas. Map scope to that data. If 15 percent of units have a separate angle stop for a bidet attachment, decide now whether you will standardize or cap. If 30 percent of kitchens were remodeled in the last five years with shallow sink bases, confirm that your new shutoffs fit without cutting a drawer. Those tiny details add up to days.
I include a photo log by unit, not to micromanage, but to create a reference that keeps field and office aligned. The superintendent calls less, finishers show up right, and the residents do not feel like beta testers.
Resident communication is not fluff
Every schedule lives or dies on access. On a 250-unit property, three locked doors per day will wreck your sequence. The cure is not a stern lease clause, it is believable communication and convenience. Let residents choose windows for noisy work. Offer a key drop with signoff for those who cannot be home. Simplify the day for people, and they will help you keep the calendar.
Tell the truth about water shutdowns. Do not promise two hours if you need six. If you must go long, schedule it when it harms the fewest people. Shift major tie-ins to mid-day, not pre-work morning or dinnertime. Provide bottled water in lobby stations on heavy days. Small gestures defuse frustration, especially when work stretches over weeks.
I still remember a property where we bought a freezer chest and stocked ice packs for pet owners on the day we turned hot water off in summer. Cost: under a hundred dollars. Value: residents brought cookies to the crew and we missed zero access appointments that week. Goodwill is a schedule tool.
Dust, drywall, and the hidden budget line
Plumbers do not leave tenants happy if the finish behind them is weak. In a single-family home, the owner may accept a rough patch and handle painting later. In multi-family, you own the finish. That means daily cleanup, HEPA vacuums, plastic containment, and aggressive dust control. Particles travel like rumors in shared corridors.
Get the finish subcontractor involved early. If your plumbing team opens a 10 by 12 inch hole and your finisher wants 12 by 12 for faster repair, align now. Standardize access panel sizes in closets and behind tub valves. Upgrade to paint-matched panels where residents will see them daily. A 10 dollar saved panel in a living room becomes a one-star review.
Schedule finish work within 48 hours of rough-in to prevent resident fatigue and to keep the unit turning. Letting patches sit open scares people and invites curiosity from other trades. The cost to keep a standing finish crew on parallel pace is real. The cost to chase them after the fact is bigger.
Phasing is a puzzle, not a list
Think of phasing in three dimensions: vertical stacks, horizontal runs, and time-of-day windows. The most efficient crews sequence by consistent repetition. If the unit layouts mirror, you can set a rhythm of shut down, isolate, demo, install, pressure test, disinfect, reopen. When plans vary, slow down the first few units in each type and create a playbook.
I often stage work in two passes. The first pass replaces mains and risers, isolates old branches, and brings domestic water to new valve points. The second pass replaces in-unit branches and fixtures. This reduces the period when a unit is partially served by new and old piping, which is where leaks sneak in. It also lets you pressure test major joints before you put finishes at risk.
Stagger your crew sizes. A large demo crew followed by a smaller skilled install team is tempting, but it generates idle time. Better to maintain balanced crews that can complete a unit end to end within the day, with a separate small team for surprises and service calls. This reduces emergency disruptions to the main line of work.
Water quality and commissioning are schedule risks
New piping does not mean pristine water on day one. Disinfection, flushing, and recirculation balancing take time. If you try to compress those steps, you create callbacks and resident complaints that drag into weeks. Health departments in some regions now require documented disinfection procedures, including parts per million of residual disinfectant and contact time. Pair your Repipe Plumbing team with a water treatment specialist if your jurisdiction leans strict or your building has had legionella scares.
Account for balancing hot water recirculation loops. Unbalanced loops cause complaints that feel like leaks in the schedule: one resident sees no hot water until three minutes, another gets burned. Set and confirm temperatures at mixing valves. Log readings at farthest fixtures. This is the quiet labor of a well-commissioned system, and it saves you from dozens of work orders after turnover.
Hidden conditions, and how to price uncertainty
No one wants a change order rodeo, but no one can see behind every wall. Old chase walls hide surprises. Galvanized sections where you expect copper. Unknown tie-ins to a neighbor’s hose bibb. The goal is not to eliminate uncertainty, it is to price and schedule it honestly.
Build a contingency that lives in the schedule, not just the budget. Reserve half a day per stack each week for discovered work. Keep a two-person rapid response unit stocked with repair fittings, shutoff valves, and patch Repipe Plumbing materials. Give your superintendent limited discretionary authority to fix small surprises immediately without stopping the main crew to argue unit pricing.
Alternately, include a unit price schedule for common surprises: per additional angle stop, per extra access panel, per additional shower valve change-out. When everyone agrees on those numbers up front, the field does not pause to calculate and the GC does not stall to negotiate.
Insurance, liability, and the cost of a drip
Repipes carry water damage risk by definition. That risk is not a line item you pencil in at the end of the estimate, it is a control plan. Require proof of coverage that matches the real risk profile, including completed operations. Confirm that your vendor’s policy covers work in occupied units and that any subcontractors are named or carry their own.
Damage prevention is a system. Pressure test every run, first with air or inert gas where allowed, then with water to operating pressure. Tag and date each test. Use moisture meters on fresh drywall patches near joints. It sounds like overkill until you have seen a pinhole open at 2 a.m. over an elderly resident’s bedroom. A single event can erase the savings of a fast schedule.
When speed really saves money, and when it does not
The temptation to compress everything into a sprint is understandable. The rent roll is staring at you and the numbers say faster is cheaper. That is true in two scenarios: when vacancy already exists and when crews can scale without losing quality. If you can clear 30 units at once and keep three balanced teams working in parallel, speed reduces mobilization days and protects general conditions. If you try to push a single crew to double output, you trade quality for overtime, and the callback curve bends upward.
I have seen a 180-unit property load up with six plumbers per stack, finish rough-in a week early, then sit while inspections lagged and finish crews fell behind. Those plumbers cost the owner more than the time saved. The wiser move would have been a smaller, steadier cadence that aligned with inspections and finishing.
Speed is also not free in resident relations. Long shutdowns and heavy foot traffic wear people out. If your brand relies on tenant satisfaction and reviews feed your leasing pipeline, measure the reputational cost of a blitz schedule. Sometimes losing a week is cheaper than losing a star.
Technology is a helper, not a silver bullet
I like simple tools that make coordination visible. Shared calendars that show unit-by-unit schedules. QR-code door hangers that take residents to a live update page. Cloud photo logs for inspectors. Moisture sensors that alert if a new joint drips overnight. None of this replaces craft, but it reduces friction.
Beware of swapping process discipline for gadgets. A clean whiteboard in the site office and a foreman who updates it at lunch can outrun a complex app if the team does not buy in. Choose tools your superintendent will actually use and that your residents can understand.
A look at numbers that anchor decisions
Consider a garden-style property, 120 units, three floors, eight stacks per building, two buildings. Assume:
- PEX repipe, domestic hot and cold, new shutoffs, new angle stops, no fixture replacement. Average of six fixtures per unit. Occupancy at 94 percent.
A tight, realistic plan would allocate roughly 10 to 12 working days per building with two balanced crews, finishing 10 to 12 units per week per crew. Shutdowns limited to four hours per unit. Finish work lagging by one to two days. Budget bands today vary, but for planning, the rough installed cost can land in the 4,500 to 6,500 dollars per unit range, depending on regional labor, finish level, and code requirements for firestopping and access. That range widens if you add mixing valves, recirculation repairs, or fixture changes.
Vacancy and concessions during work might cost 8,000 to 15,000 dollars over the two buildings if three to four units must be held empty at a time. Compare that to the extra 20,000 to 30,000 dollars in labor premiums if you try to shorten the schedule by 20 percent with overtime and larger crews. The cheaper path is often the steadier cadence, paired with thoughtful resident management.
Edge cases that force hard choices
Every portfolio has a problem child. Two types stand out.
First, mid-century high-rises with asbestos-containing materials in pipe chases. Here, abatement controls your schedule. Negative air machines, regulated area setup, and disposal add days and require specialized crews. The safest approach is to combine abatement and repipe within the same enclosure to limit reopenings, even if that means higher daily burn rates. This is where copper sometimes regains ground due to heat tolerance during final tie-ins near existing steam or high-temperature lines.
Second, coastal properties with aggressive water chemistry. Chloramines and low pH chew on certain metals over time. If you are replacing failing copper because of pinholing from water reliable repipe plumbing chemistry, do not repeat history. Consider PEX with oxygen barrier on recirculation lines and confirm manufacturer compatibility with your disinfectant residuals. Work with the water provider to understand seasonal variations.
Procurement strategy that respects both money and time
Buying for a repipe is not a one-and-done transaction. Staggered deliveries protect you from theft, jobsite clutter, and damage, but they can starve your crew if a pallet misses a truck. Use a buyout plan that breaks materials into three to four drops aligned to phasing. Lock pricing for 60 to 90 days where possible. In volatile markets, some vendors will hold pricing if you accept storage at their warehouse with scheduled releases. That hedges inflation without filling your site with stock.
Avoid false economy on small parts. Angle stops, escutcheons, clamps, nail plates, fire caulk, and access panels form the connective tissue of a clean repipe. Bulk them sensibly. The time lost to scavenging the last box of clamps costs more than buying a little extra.
Vendor selection and the value of references
Repipe Plumbing vendors are not interchangeable. Ask for a recent project of similar size and occupancy profile. Not a highlight reel, a contact you can call. Ask that property manager about shutdown timing, wall openings versus promises, and how the crew handled mistakes. Every project has mistakes. You want the partner who owns them quickly.
Evaluate how the vendor talks about sequencing. If all you hear is unit counts per day, press for details about inspectors, firestopping, finish coordination, and resident access procedures. The company that volunteers a sample door notice and a shutdown schedule usually has learned the hard lessons already.
A minimal plan that keeps both sides honest
Here is a short, practical framework I use to launch a repipe on firm footing. It is not fancy, but it keeps budget and time from drifting.
- Define occupancy strategy: stack-by-stack with guaranteed same-day water restoration unless specifically noted otherwise. Publish a three-week rolling schedule: unit lists, shutdown windows, contact information, and inspection dates. Preload materials: one week’s worth per crew onsite, with a second week committed at the supplier. Daily closeout: photo log of each unit’s shutoffs and access panels, test tags visible. Weekly owner walk: superintendent, property manager, and finish foreman review three completed stacks for quality and resident feedback.
That cadence gives everyone visibility. It also surfaces risks early, when they are still cheap to fix.
The human factor that is easy to overlook
People do this work. Crews get tired, residents get anxious, managers wear two hats. A good schedule respects human bandwidth. I limit Saturday work to true emergencies, not because the calendar disallows it, but because Monday quality drops after a hard weekend. I push for consistent start times so residents can orient their day. I ask crews to knock and wait a full count, even when they hold a key, because dignity goes a long way in someone’s home.
None of these moves show up in a spreadsheet. All of them protect the schedule and the budget.
Where the money hides, and where it leaks
The visible costs are easy: pipe, fittings, labor hours. The hidden costs are the ones that blow up well-intended plans.
- Mobilizations: every return to a unit for a missed detail takes a truck, a tech, and an hour you did not plan. Streamline so the main crew finishes fully. Failed inspections: one miss can push a stack by three days if the calendar is tight. Pre-inspect with your superintendent and document firestopping systems. Resident churn: if three percent of residents choose not to renew because of a bad repipe experience, the leasing and turn costs exceed most line-item savings you fought for in purchasing. Train your onsite team to absorb complaints and solve small problems fast.
The fix is not perfection, it is focus. Decide where you can afford to be average, and where you must be excellent.
A closing thought from the service corridor
I have never seen a flawless repipe in a multi-family building. I have seen smart repipes that hit the numbers, finish close to plan, and leave a property in better shape. The difference is not magic, it is judgment. Treat occupancy as the primary constraint. Pick materials to fit both chemistry and calendar. Sequence to reduce resident pain. Price uncertainty honestly. And remember that time and budget are not opposing forces, they are partners. When you respect one, the other usually improves.
If you handle those fundamentals and pick a Repipe Plumbing partner who has walked this road before, you will find the balance point where the water runs clear, the walls look like nothing happened, and the only evidence of the project is fewer maintenance tickets and quieter nights.
Business Name: Principled Plumbing LLC Address: Oregon City, OR 97045 About Business: Principled Plumbing: Honest Plumbing Done Right, Since 2024 Serving Clackamas, Multnomah, Washington, Marion, and Yamhill counties since 2024, Principled Plumbing installs and repairs water heaters (tank & tankless), fixes pipes/leaks/drains (including trenchless sewer), and installs fixtures/appliances. We support remodels, new construction, sump pumps, and filtration systems. Emergency plumbing available—fast, honest, and code-compliant. Trust us for upfront pricing and expert plumbing service every time! Website: https://principledplumbing.com/ Phone: (503) 919-7243