Plumbing, drains and water treatment across Las Vegas and Clark County. Call (725) 255-9011
PreferredPlumber Company

Pipe repair in Las Vegas and Clark County

Pipe repair for supply lines, drains and water mains

Copper, PEX, galvanised and polybutylene. What the rest of the pipe looks like decides repair against replace.

  • Diagnosis before a price
  • Permitted work handled through the right office
  • No invented credentials on this site
What brings people to this page, illustrative image for pipe repair in Las Vegas
Illustrative image, not a photo of our work
291 ppmLas Vegas tap water hardness
17 gpgGrains per gallon, classed very hard
90%Of Southern Nevada water comes from Lake Mead
5Incorporated cities in Clark County, the rest is county

Figures above are published third party data, not company claims. Sources: Las Vegas Valley Water District, water district hardness figure, water district supply figure, Clark County.

  • Las Vegas and Clark CountyThe service area on our own mark. Every incorporated city in the valley plus the unincorporated towns, which is where about a million people live.
  • Repair, install, maintainThe three verbs on our logo, and the whole scope. Emergency repair through to planned replacement and annual servicing.
  • Water softeners, all makes and modelsInstallation, repair, replacement and maintenance, including units that came with the house. We are not an authorised dealer for any brand and we do not claim to be.
  • Sourced facts, no invented credentialsEvery local figure on this site links to the agency that published it. Nothing about licences, ratings or guarantees is printed until it has been verified.
The short answer

Whether a pipe gets repaired or replaced depends less on the leak and more on what the rest of the pipe looks like. Patching one pinhole in a run of failing pipe is money spent on the next leak being somewhere else.

What brings people to this page

Supply lines, drain lines and the main water line into the house are all on this page, because the diagnostic question is the same one.

  • A visible drip or spray at a joint, a fitting or a valve
  • A pinhole leak in copper, often at an elbow or in a horizontal run
  • Water pressure that has dropped across the whole house over years
  • Rusty water when the house has been unused for a day
  • A wet spot in the yard along the route of the main water line
  • Grey flexible supply pipe in a house built roughly between 1978 and 1995
  • A repair that has already been done twice on the same run
The question that decides the job

Not how bad is this leak, but what is the rest of this pipe made of and how old is it. A pinhole in sound copper is a repair. The same pinhole in a run of brittle polybutylene, or in galvanised pipe that is closing up with rust, is the first of a series, and repairing it alone is the expensive route.

Pipe materials in valley homes, and what each one does

The build year tells you most of it. This table is general material history rather than a claim about any particular street.

Common residential pipe materials and their failure modes
MaterialTypical era and how it fails
Galvanised steelPre 1960s construction. Corrodes from the inside, so the bore closes with rust scale. Pressure drops everywhere at once and water runs rusty after the house sits. Repairs are usually a stopgap.
CopperCommon from the 1960s onward. Long lived, but builds interior scale in hard water and develops pinhole leaks at elbows and in slab runs where the pipe rubs on concrete.
PolybutyleneRoughly 1978 to 1995, grey and flexible. Chlorine and other oxidising disinfectants react with the plastic. It goes brittle from the inside, flakes, then splits, often at a fitting and often with no warning drip. Subject of the Cox against Shell Oil class action settled in 1995, no longer manufactured and no longer code rated.
CPVCRigid cream or off white plastic. Reliable, but becomes brittle with age and is unforgiving of movement, so failures cluster at fittings.
PEXCommon in newer valley construction and the usual choice for repipes. Flexible and quick to run. Failure points are fittings and any section that has had sunlight on it, because UV degrades it.
Cast iron, drainsOlder drain lines. Corrodes and scales internally, and eventually the bottom of the pipe goes. A camera is how you assess it.
Timeline of residential pipe materials by build era, from galvanised steel through copper and polybutylene to PEX
Diagram, not a photograph of our work
How it works

How we approach a pipe repair

  1. Locate and expose only what is needed

    Where the leak is hidden, it gets located before anything is opened. See our leak detection page for how.

    First
  2. Identify the material and assess the run

    This is the step that decides repair against replace, and it is the step most quotes skip.

    On site
  3. Repair, or price both honestly

    Sound pipe gets a proper repair. Where the material or age means more leaks are coming, you get the repair price and the repipe price, and the reasoning for each.

    Same visit
  4. Pressure test and reinstate

    The repair is tested under pressure before anything is closed up, and access is patched back.

    Same visit

Where a repair is the wrong long term answer but the right thing today, we will do the repair and say plainly what is coming. A repipe you are not ready for is not an emergency purchase.

Diagram of leak location methods, showing meter isolation, acoustic listening, zone pressure testing and thermal imaging
Diagram, not a photograph of our work
What it costs

What decides the price of pipe repair

No rate or range for this work is published anywhere on this site, because none has been confirmed for publication for this business. What follows is the honest version: what actually moves the number on a job like this, so you can read any quote and judge it.

What you get from the call

Describe what is happening and you will hear what it usually means, what the repair involves and what somebody needs to see before quoting it. That happens whether or not you book the work.

What moves the number on this job

  • Access. The same repair costs very different amounts behind a cabinet, inside a wall, under a slab or four feet down in a yard. Access is usually the largest single variable.
  • Repair or replace. A cartridge is a part. A failed tank, exhausted softener resin or brittle polybutylene is a replacement, and no amount of repair spend fixes those.
  • Parts, and whether they still exist. A common cartridge is cheap and on the van. A control head for a discontinued softener is neither.
  • Permit and inspection, where the work needs them. A water heater replacement, a repipe and sewer work are permitted and inspected in this valley. That is real time and real cost, and work done without it turns up later in a buyer inspection.
  • Diagnosis time. Finding a hidden leak is a separate skill from fixing it, and on a slab leak the locating is most of the job. Paying for it is cheaper than exploratory demolition.

What to ask whoever quotes you

  • Which of the five things above is driving this number.
  • Is this a repair or a replacement, and what made you choose.
  • Does the price include the permit and the inspection, where the work needs one.
  • What is your Nevada contractor licence number. Plumbing is classification C-1, Plumbing and Heating, and the Nevada State Contractors Board register lets you check any licence in about a minute. Ask us the same question.

The repair against replace conversation

Can you just fix the leak?

Usually yes, and often that is the right call. The exception is pipe whose material or condition means the next leak is already on its way. You will get told which situation you are in, with the reason, and the decision stays yours.

I have grey flexible pipe. How urgent is it?

Polybutylene from that era fails from the inside with little warning, and it is no longer manufactured or code rated. It is not an emergency the day you notice it, but it is a planned replacement rather than a someday item, and replacing it before it fails is much cheaper than replacing it after.

Why do I keep getting pinhole leaks in copper?

Pinholes cluster where water chemistry, flow and physical contact combine. In hard water there is interior scaling, and in slab runs the pipe moves against concrete. A pattern of pinholes in one house is a sign to assess the whole run rather than to keep patching.

Diagram of the five things that decide a plumbing invoice, from access through to diagnosis time
Diagram, not a photograph of our work
Checkable, not claimed

We have no reviews to show you yet, so here is verifiable fact instead

A new site with a wall of glowing testimonials should make you suspicious, and this one does not have them because no review corpus has been verified for this brand. Rather than fill the space with invented quotes, these are three things about your water and your county that you can check against the agency that published them.

Your water is 291 ppm, and that is not our opinion

The Las Vegas Valley Water District publishes valley tap water at 291 parts per million, 17 grains per gallon, and categorises it as very hard. It is the reason fixtures and water heaters here do not last as long as the box promised.

Read the water district page

Softening is a preference, not a health need

The Southern Nevada Water Authority states that removing calcium and magnesium softens water but is not a necessity to protect your health. Any company telling you otherwise is contradicting the agency that tests your supply.

Read the water authority page

Nevada plumbing is licensed as C-1

Plumbing and Heating, issued by the Nevada State Contractors Board under chapter 624. You can check any contractor licence on their register in about a minute, and you should, before work starts.

Check a licence on the register
What the work looks like

Pipe repair in a valley home

An illustrative image, not a photograph of our work.

Pipe repair work in a Las Vegas home, illustrative image
Illustrative image, not a photo of our work

What the work looks like

An illustrative view of the equipment and access this job involves. It is not a photograph of our work.

Photography note

These are illustrations and diagrams, not photographs of our work. No job photography, before and after pair, van, uniform or team photograph appears anywhere on this site, because we do not have verified photographs of this company work yet and generating them would fabricate evidence about a real business. Real job photography is on the list to add.

Where we work

Pipe repair across Clark County

We cover pipe repair in every community below. Each area page names the authority that issues a permit for that address, which matters whenever this work is permitted.

One way in, and it is the phone

Talk to us about pipe repair

One call. You get the diagnosis before the number, and the cost of the visit before anyone is sent out.

Reach Preferred Plumber Company

Licence
Nevada State Contractors Board licence NV #0078989, C-1D Plumbing held by Preferred Plumbing LLC
Service area
Clark County, Nevada, including Las Vegas, Henderson, North Las Vegas, Summerlin, Paradise, Spring Valley, Enterprise, Sunrise Manor, Centennial Hills and Boulder City

We are a service area business. We come to you, so there is no counter to visit and no street address on this page. The number above is the fastest way in.

What to have ready

None of it is required. All of it makes the call shorter.

Calling about Pipe repair? Say that first and we can skip straight to the questions that matter for it. Something else? Look through what else we cover.

  • Where you areThe address, and a cross street if the address is new or hard to find. Which end of the valley you are on decides who is closest.
  • What is happening, in your own wordsNo plumbing vocabulary needed. "Water under the sink since this morning" is a better description than a guess at the cause.
  • Whether water is running right nowThis is the question that changes everything else. If it is, say so first and we will talk you to the shutoff before anything else.
  • What you have already triedPlunged it, reset the disposal, flipped the breaker, ran the softener through a regeneration. It saves repeating the steps that did not work.
  • Whether you own or rentA landlord or an HOA sometimes has to authorise the work, and it is better to find that out on the phone than at the door.

Water pouring right now? Do not read the rest of this. Call (725) 255-9011 and shut off the supply while it rings.

Pipe repair questions

How do I know what kind of pipe my house has?

The build year narrows it fast, and then a look under a sink, at the water heater connections or in the garage usually confirms it. Grey flexible pipe means polybutylene. Dull silver threaded pipe means galvanised. Copper is copper. Our pipe materials guide walks through identifying each.

Is polybutylene pipe dangerous?

It is not a health hazard. It is a reliability problem: the material becomes brittle through reaction with oxidising disinfectants in municipal water, then splits, often at a fitting and often without a warning drip first. It is no longer manufactured and no longer carries a US code rating.

Can a pipe be repaired inside a wall?

Yes, once it has been located. The access opening gets made where the leak is, the repair is done and pressure tested, and the opening is patched. Locating first is what keeps that to one opening.

How long does a pipe repair take?

An accessible joint or fitting repair is often an hour or two. A located leak inside a wall or under a slab takes longer because of access and reinstatement, and a main water line in the yard depends on depth and route.

Does hard water damage pipes?

It scales the inside of them, which narrows the bore over years and contributes to pinhole formation in copper. At 291 parts per million, the water district figure for this valley, it is a real factor rather than a theoretical one.

Talk to someone about pipe repair

Describe what is happening and we will tell you what it usually takes to fix, before anyone comes out.