Hi!

I'm buying a house in Santa Clarita, CA, that desperately needs to be repiped. I'm just not sure what I should repipe with. Here's what I have gleaned so far:

Galvanized is really bad. Tends to get pinhole leaks really fast in this area.

Copper is the general choice when it comes to repiping. However, Santa Clarita water is very hard, and the claim is that it reacts with the copper to cause pinhole leaks. Apparently it's not unknown for copper to fail in 3-5 years here. Countering that is a claim that soft copper fails, but hard copper is fine.

Kitek and Pex: no problem with the pipes and less damage to the walls when doing the repipe, but apparently there are some class-action lawsuits due to problems with the fittings and installation.

So, what should I be considering? Everyone claims that theirs is best, downplays the problem with their matieral, and talks about the other materials' problems.

Where I live most old houses have the hard copper piping from when they were originally built around a hundred years ago. When they do need to replace the copper they usually use PVC.

Sound like you have aggressive water out there.l I would stick with plastic for my repipe job. In the past Pex, which is the most user friendly, had connections but they've all been ironed out. CPVC is also user friendly but not as much as Pex. Good luck in whatever you use. Regards, tom