rethreading Galvanized pipe

[kellyj00]

I'm about to start pulling the old galanized pipe in my 40 year old home. I plan to remove only the main lines and leave the vertical sections that lead to fixtures.

Connecting those vertical lines to PEX seems straightforward. What I'm most concerned with is the quality of hte Galvanized that's there. If I start unscrewing, I understand I run great risk of damaging the pipe that's there to the point that I won't be able to screw on PVC connectors for the PEX, is it possible to rethread these galvanized pipes without having to remove them?

Also, it does seem possible to knock out a section of the wall in order to run PEX all the way up...but how do I attach PEX so it's sturdy like the old galvenized was? Does it nail to a 2/4 with a clamp or soemthing?

[Grandpa]

Personally, I'd get rid of *all* the galvanized and replace the short structural pieces with copper. But then our water has a tendency to destroy galvanized pipe in short order.

Here's what we did for those areas that needed structural integrity: For the tub and shower - we used half-inch copper to the water valves and spigots; that meant sweating on a copper-to-PEX connector below the valves. For behind the lavatory, we used PEX angle stop valves (quarter turn) to get the 3/8 supply fittings. For under the kitchen sink, we came up the original galvanized holes with two half inch copper pipes then sweat threaded fittings on the top end and PEX on the bottom. For us, that was less than five total feet of copper pipe and some fittings. We also used two copper PEX-to-water heater adapters to finish it off.

[hallerb]

I would physically run the PEX to at least one bathroom before starting the project.

Rethreading may be a disaster,

try to have one servicable bathroom befiore distrubing everything else.

PEX can hang in the wall safely with minimum of support

[scott21230]

I would not attempt to keep any of the galvanized pipe. Replace it all with platsic or copper.

[dpb]

I see very little point in that as an end objective. If the galvanized is bad enough it really needs replacement _now_, then it makes no sense at all to leave what typically are the first places to have problems (the smaller feeder lines) to fail and lead to emergency repairs later on. If it isn't that bad, then you might as well just leave it all until ready to do the whole thing.

Already answered this once in the other thread -- if it isn't already to the point of failure, the chances are pretty good, but as noted above, if it is and you're not replacing it all, then I fail to see the point. If it is that bad, you're just asking for trouble during the work and leaving trouble in place to cause its namesake after having just spent a significant effort.

They make stuff for every problem...