Repiping a Michigan house: permits, lead lines and what to ask

What a plumber does when a house is repiped

Repiping replaces the water supply pipes inside the house: the lines that carry water from where it enters to the fixtures. A plumber opens walls, floors or ceilings along the pipe runs, takes out the old pipe, installs new pipe and reconnects every fixture and the water heater. The plumber then pressure-tests the system, and the building department inspects it.

Opening walls makes this two jobs, the plumbing and the patching afterwards, so ask whether the quote includes drywall and paint or leaves the patching to someone else.

A leak does not always mean a repipe: if one accessible section has failed, a spot repair may do, and our leak repair page covers that case. The repair-or-repipe question is further down.

What repiping costs in Michigan: estimates, not quotes

Our estimate for repiping a whole house in Michigan is $1,675 to $16,100, with a typical $75 permit fee included. It is a model, not a quote, and the band is wide because the national published ranges it starts from are wide. The wage is what plumbers are paid, and permit fees, which vary by city, are one small part of the bill.

Estimated range. Built from national published ranges (2 sources), adjusted by Michigan's plumber wage ratio to the US (1.07, BLS May 2025), plus the local permit fee where the city publishes one. Not a quote. Where Michigan companies publish prices we show them separately. Full method. Prices as of Oct 19, 2026.

Repair a section or repipe the house

Pipe lifespans lack a reliable source, so we do not say how long copper, PEX or galvanized lasts. What you can judge is the pattern: one failed section in a place you can reach is a repair, while repeated leaks in different places, or pipe a plumber can show you failing along its length, make the case for a repipe.

Repiping the house is not the same as replacing a lead service line

The service line runs from the water main in the street to the house, and interior piping starts there. Michigan's lead rules apply to the service line, and EGLE says water suppliers are responsible for removing the entire lead line from the main to the home, including all costs, that partial replacements are banned, and that supplies must replace an average of 5 percent of lead lines a year for 20 years unless EGLE approves another schedule.

A repiping contractor is the wrong person for a lead service line problem, and a repipe will not have touched the line. EGLE's statewide inventory summary, self-reported by water suppliers, counts lead at 8 percent of service lines (203,050), galvanized pipe previously connected to lead at 2 percent (61,608), lead status unknown at 12 percent (315,372) and non-lead at 78 percent (2,028,832). Galvanized pipe once connected to lead is treated like lead in the replacement and notification rules.

Cities publish their own counts. Grand Rapids reports 17,165 known or presumed lead lines out of 80,196, with a lookup map. Dearborn's 2024 report lists 6,932 known lead lines, 1,219 of unknown material and 1,766 lead lines replaced since 2019. Battle Creek's 2024 report lists 3,360 known lead lines and 5,783 of unknown material out of 18,783. EPA's guide says a penny or key and a magnet are enough to start identifying a pipe, and the utility can tell you what it has on record. See Grand Rapids, Dearborn and Battle Creek.

Michigan winters and why a pipe fails where it does

The State of Michigan's frozen-pipe page says pipes in crawl spaces and attics freeze first and that both PVC and copper can burst. It also cites a state committee's estimate of a quarter-million damaged homes each winter and an eighth-inch crack leaking up to 250 gallons a day. The figures are undated, so treat them as the State's attribution rather than current statistics. Michigan's 42-inch frost figure applies to footings and says nothing about pipe depth.

A good test of a repipe quote is to ask where the new pipe will run, because new pipe in the same cold exterior wall can freeze again. Our frozen pipes guide covers prevention.

When failing pipes are an emergency

What to do before you commit to a repipe

1. Find and test your main shutoff with our shutoff tool.
2. Find out whether the leaks are in one place or many, and whether any section is accessible.
3. Ask your utility what material your service line is, and whether it appears on its inventory.
4. Get at least two written quotes that name the pipe material, the permit and the wall repair.

Permits, licensing and the contract for a Michigan repipe

LARA says plumbing work may not start until a permit is issued, and exempts only repairs to the working parts of a faucet or valve and clearing stoppages with no alteration of existing piping or fixtures. Replacing piping alters it, so a repipe falls outside the exemption. That is our reading of the rule text, and a city may add its own steps, so confirm with your building department.

Only a licensed master or journey plumber may do plumbing. The licensing law also exempts a homeowner doing plumbing in their own single-family home with a permit, which we do not recommend for a whole-house job. Unlicensed work is a misdemeanor under MCL 339.5601.

Put the job in a written contract. Under the Construction Lien Act, a contractor has no lien right on a residential structure unless the work was under a written contract, and that contract must state that a plumbing contractor must be licensed and give the license number. Check the number on the LARA lookup.

Ask for the license number and check it on the LARA lookup before any work starts.

A tool for this job

Questions people ask

Keep reading

Guides

• Frozen pipes in Michigan: thaw one safely, stop the next one
• Plumbing work a Michigan homeowner can do without a permit
• How to check a Michigan plumber's license, and what to do if something goes wrong

Related services

• Leak repair
• Emergency plumber
• Water heater replacement

Michigan licensing, code and permit facts · How to check a plumber's license · Report a wrong price or rule