Hello,
I have a house that was built in 1956. Galvanized pipe ran throughout the house before. I purchased the house last year. The back yard water spigot, originally galvanized pipe, was replaced in 2001 with copper. That was the only pipe that was repiped up until last week. Last week I decided to have the house repiped with copper as I noticed that some of the pipes under the kitchen sink were rusting through. I don't want to have to worry about pipes later down the road.
So the repipe work was done last week. For the most part, everything is good and the water flows nicely. He had to bypass some of the pipes due to inaccessibility. However, I noticed that he did not replace the pipe that leads from the faucet to the shower head in both of our bathrooms. I noticed this when he still had the wall open. Also, we have some galvanized pipe that is embedded in a concrete slab that he did not replace/bypass. He replaced the pipe below (before) it (the water supply line) and after it (that goes to the water heater).
My question is: should I be concerned? I have heard that copper and galvanized pipe in the same system is not a good thing, that the copper will react with the galvanized pipe and cause the galvanized pipe to rust out quickly. I would hate to have a leak between the bathroom walls or near the water heater that could ruin my walls or flood my house. What should I do? Should I call him back and have him change those galvanized pipes to copper, too? FWIW, I get the feeling that he did the job to us as a favor (he's doing the whole thing for $4500 - family friend) and that as such, he wasn't too shy on cutting a few (maybe minor?) corners. But maybe I am just being paranoid or anal. Suggestions/comments?