Bathroom material prices and Central Ohio home values since 2019, by the public indexes

How much more a faucet, a sheet of wallboard or a length of copper pipe costs than it did in 2019 is a question the federal price indexes answer in percentages, and how much Central Ohio houses have gained is one the house price indexes answer the same way. This page sets out both, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the Census Bureau and Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies, each as a percent change with its dates, and says plainly what an index can and cannot tell.

Last updated September 2026 · Indexes are the Bureau of Labor Statistics', the Federal Housing Finance Agency's, the Census Bureau's and Harvard's Joint Center's, each read September 24, 2026 · No prices on this page; the Estimate Builder carries those · Part of the knowledge base

What these indexes measure, and what they do not

Every figure on this page is a published government or university index, stated as a percent change between two dates. A producer price index from the Bureau of Labor Statistics measures the average change over time in the prices domestic producers receive for their output. It is not a store shelf price, it does not include labor or installation, it covers domestic producers only, so an imported faucet or toilet is not in it, and the Bureau's own handbook says tariffs themselves are explicitly excluded, though price changes domestic producers make in response to tariffs are included. A house price index measures how the prices of houses have moved, not what any one house is worth. None of these figures is the price of a product, of a bathroom, or of any company's work, and the page does not suggest what a project should cost. Every index here is not seasonally adjusted unless the table says otherwise, and the latest four months of each producer price index are preliminary and can be revised.

Bathroom materials since January 2019

Consumer prices overall rose 33.1 percent over the same months, so plumbing fixtures and fittings, glass and gypsum rose somewhat faster than prices in general, tile rose slower, and copper and plastic pipe fittings more than doubled. The index for toilets and sinks themselves, vitreous china plumbing fixtures, stopped in 2014; the industry index shown in its place covers pottery, ceramics, plumbing fixtures and electrical supplies made of clay or ceramic, so it is a stand-in and not the same measure. No Bureau of Labor Statistics index is named for tempered glass or shower doors; the nearest, for glass products made from purchased glass, covers tempering among much else.

Three shapes of price change

Read year by year, the materials moved in three different ways. Plumbing fixtures and fittings climbed every year, with larger rises from January 2021 to January 2022 and from January 2025 to January 2026, and flat glass rose every year too. Plastic pipe spiked and then partly fell back: plastics pipe rose 63.9 percent in the single year from January 2021 to January 2022, and by August 2026 was 17.6 percent below its July 2022 high. Gypsum jumped in 2021 and 2022 and has stayed close to its high since. Tile rose least, about half as much as overall inflation. Copper rose hardest from January 2020 to January 2022, eased for two years, and rose again from January 2024 on. The Bureau publishes the indexes, not the reasons for them, so this page gives none.

Home prices in the Columbus metro and the seven counties

The Federal Housing Finance Agency's house price indexes track repeat sales of homes whose mortgages Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac bought or guaranteed; the all-transactions indexes also count refinance appraisals, and the purchase-only indexes do not. All four series below reached their highest value in the second quarter of 2026, the latest available. Over the year to that quarter the Columbus metro's purchase-only index rose 3.72 percent, against 2.1 percent for the nation, and the agency's release named the East North Central division, which includes Ohio, as the region with the strongest appreciation.

The agency also publishes annual indexes by county, which it calls developmental. In the seven Central Ohio counties they rose between 57.8 and 68.4 percent from 2019 to 2025, and the biggest single year was 2022, between 15.4 and 17.5 percent. By 2025 the yearly rise had slowed to between 3.2 and 6.3 percent.

What owners say their homes are worth

The Census Bureau's American Community Survey asks owners what their home would sell for, and publishes the median of those answers. It is an owner's own estimate, not a sale price, averaged over five years of survey responses, which is why it gives different answers from the agency's index. Comparing the survey's 2015 to 2019 figures with its 2020 to 2024 figures, which do not overlap as the Bureau instructs, the median owner's estimate rose between 44.3 percent in Delaware County and 69.2 percent in Union County. The margin shown is an approximation made for this page from the Bureau's published margins, not a Bureau figure; every change is far larger than its margin. Delaware County shows how the two measures can disagree: the lowest rise of the seven by the survey, near the middle by the agency's county index, over different years.

What homeowners nationally are spending on remodeling

Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies estimates national spending by owners on improvements and repairs to the homes they live in, and projects it a year ahead. By its figures, that spending in the four quarters ending mid-2026 was about 57.6 percent higher than in 2019, and nearly all of the rise came by the end of 2022; since then it has been close to flat. Its July 2026 release projects year-over-year growth slowing to 0.5 percent by the second quarter of 2027. The figures are national and not adjusted for inflation; the indicator has no Ohio or Columbus version. How many residential plumbing permits Columbus itself issued each year is on the page on bathroom permit trends in Columbus.

Series that stopped

The record has holes, and they are part of reading it. Several indexes a bathroom page would want no longer run, and one month of consumer prices was never published.

Sources

Every figure, date and quotation on this page comes from one of these documents, read on the date given. Where two of them disagree, the page says so.

• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Producer Price Indexes, each series read at data.bls.gov/timeseries by its series number and through the Bureau's public data service, August 2026 release of September 10, 2026; read September 24, 2026.
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Handbook of Methods, Producer Price Indexes, Concepts, last modified March 19, 2026; read September 24, 2026.
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index series CUUR0000SA0 and CUUR0200SA0, and the notice on the 2025 lapse in appropriations; read September 24, 2026.
• Federal Housing Finance Agency, House Price Index datasets, quarterly metro and state files and the annual county file last updated March 31, 2026, and the second quarter 2026 release of August 25, 2026; read September 24, 2026.
• U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates, table B25077, Median Value, 2015 to 2019 and 2020 to 2024, through data.census.gov, with Comparing ACS Data; read September 24, 2026.
• Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity, and the release of July 23, 2026; read September 24, 2026.

Common questions