When the water main must be turned off for any reason, various pipes in the bathrooms clog up with debris. The aerators have to be cleaned, and sometimes the water supply lines to commode tanks have to be replaced.

I want to find a way to solve this problem permanently, so that things don't clog up with the water main is turned off.. A plumber told me that the problem was rusty pipes, and that the only solution was to replace every pipe in this 42-year old house, at a cost he didn't even want to guess at.

Surely there's a better solution that that?

You'll just have to live with this problem of a minor inconvenience type unless you have mega bucks to change out all your pipes. There is no easy solution or easy fix for this.