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If yes and it is metal, be aware that the electrical system may be using this as a "ground". You might need "ground rods" installed and an electrical "bonding connection" installed to existing interior metal water pipes.
And in my area a permit is required to replace this pipe. They might specify a minimum size like 1".
So in answer to your question, I would use 1" PVC, get a permit for this, and also be sure the electrical grounding system had the appropriate modifications/changes as needed.
If your electrical is grounded otthe pipes, I think you should instal ground rods anyway. Grounding to the pipe supposedly can create some sort of problem (ground loop?). Although I have lived in many houses and know friends/neigbors in more houses with plumbing grounds and no problems. So I am nto sure, but if you want the abundance of caution approach, you electrical should be grounded with rods if it is grounded ot the plumbing even if you do not replace the pipe with plastic.
I just chatted with a friend that teaches plumbing here at a local college. I asked about why we don't use PEX here as a supply line. He said that a 1" PEX line will flow about the same amount of water as a 3/4" copper. You'd need to use a 1 1/4" PEX line to equal a 1" copper line. A 1" supply line is required here at minimum, either copper or PVC sch 40. He claims you'll lose about 15 lbs water pressure per 100 lineal feet of run with it too based on our water pressures here. WE have 80+ lbs line pressures here and a lot of it exceeds 125lbs. He says there is the issue with using PEX that large when it comes to crimping. It requires a hydraulic crimper to make any joints. I would imagine that the required equipment to make it work would throw it out of budget in most areas.
Most of our new construction uses PVC sch 40 for the supply lines. On my jobs I require the plumber to backfill with sand as we have a lot of soil movement here that most areas won't have. We hardly ever see temps cold enough for a supply line to be in any danger of freezing. Our burys are at most 18" deep and some are 6". My personal home is about 8" and PVC.
Very different in different places. Our water line is 6-8 feet under ground. The whole thing is plastic. Even the Township uses plastic for the leads. I am not sure whether theirs is PEX or something else. It is black. It is more flexible than PVC.
I think the plumbing teacher may dislike PEX in part because he is only familiar with the old type f PEX connectors which restricted flow. The new type does not. I find a lot of old school plumbers are against PEX. They try to come up with any reason they can. When you ask them to give specific reasons that Copper is better, they cannot. Some of them start saying things that applied to the old PVC (before CPVC). They are needed becuae they know all about installing copper pipe. They do not like PEX because it is not familiar to them and because it threatens them. With PEX they have to learn something new and are on the same base as beginning plumbers. I have yet to have anyone come up with reasons that are factually correct and logically sensible for why PEX is not a superior product.
PEX is actually superior to Copper in a lot of ways. One of which it is far cheaper. Another is that it is somewhat resistant to freezing. It does nto decay or corrode. Acidig water does nto eat holes in it (some municipal water will eat through copper fairly quickly). It does not put copper into your drinking water, it is totally inert. If you set up your plumbing correctly (direct runs to a large manifold, not trunk and branch) you get substantially better volume flow over copper. It is also supposedly less likey to get pierced by nails because it can flex to the side instead of getting punctured, but an idiot with a nail gun was still able to turn one of our pipes into a collander. Where copper really does not make sense is retrofitting an existing house. Pex can be threaded thorught he walls like wire with no holes at all in many situations. You have no connecitons to fail. You plumber cannot make a faulty conncetion iside the wall that starts to leak in three years, because there are no connections inside the walls. With copper, you need access to solder the joints together. Lots and lots of holes. Copper pupe cannot curve (at least not much), you have to put in elbows. In many situations you can put in a PEX run with zero elbows, just a single pipe from the manifold to the valve.
A lot depends on what is being done withe the rest of the house. If the house is all PEX, it makes little or no sense to have the pipe from the meter copper. If the house is all copper, you get little advantage form a PEX tie in ot the meter unless freezing or corrosion is a concern.
No doubt which is why there can be more than one correct answer to a H/Os issues.
Actually the teacher/plumber likes PEX and uses it on his jobs. Because we don't have the extreme cold temps, we run it overhead in insulated areas. The PEX is covered by the insulation so more insulation is not required. At slab pour we just use a 6' piece of PEX and loop it on the meter side of the closest corner of the forms. That gets it inside the house and also the connection for the outside. He's a fan of the water manifolds that are available with the PEX system where you can turn off just the cold/hot water to one side of a single fixture. They're pretty much standard in all of my houses. We all like the single, no splice run of the PEX.
But PEX won't last as long as copper under normal conditions. PEX expectant life is 35 years where copper is 50. Obviously both can last longer. But in some cases PEX will last a lot longer than copper. I spent nearly 2 years fixing pinhole leaks in copper piping for one of the national builders. They were using a 1/4" return line back to the water heater so that the H/O pretty much had instant hot water. Both the return line and the 1/2" line would develop pinhole leaks. The issue was the hot water is considered stored energy and was eating the copper. We replaced them with PEX and haven't had to go back to any of the homes. It cost them a lot in drywall repairs and mold remediation for their mistake.
They have been using PEX in Europe for a very long time. They claim it lasts essentially forever. The connecitons are the only place for it to fail and if done right you only have connections at the minifold and termination which are easy enough to replace. Since it does not corrode or react to the water, and minerals do not stick to the pipe, there is no reason it would need to be replaced. (Unless you have an idiot plumber who put part of it in as trunk and brach like ours did. He made a bunch of excuses for not following the crystal clear agreement. However i had no time to tear it all out and start over, other crews were waiting for the tardy plumber to finish his work, so we decided to live with it. Big mistake. We should have made him tear it out and start over. Now, someday we will end up ripping out the finished cielings and putting the plumbing in correctly (straight runs to a manifold)).
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