Years ago, the boss got a roll of lead free Sterling Taramet, or Tagamet. Not sure which. Seemed to work reasonably well.
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it's not hard to find
hell back in the day, they used to ADD lead to drinks to enhance the flavor. More gubmint control.... sigh....
very informative there mr. wiki. Probably not accurate though, and what the hell's that got to do with plumbing? We're soldering with the shit, not eating it.
I do believe that minerals in the water coat the insides of pipes and basically seal the lead in. Of course, I could be wrong but I could have sworn I read that somewhere, sometime. o_O
TDD
obviously tens of thousands of people grew up in lead soldered copper plumbed houses or STILL live in them. It obviously is not a problem.
I have a friend with a common hobby interest that occasional requires us to solder the ends of 1/16" aircraft cable to prevent it from unraveling after we cut it.
He always pulls out his tin of flux that dates back to the 1940's. He found it in his grandfather's garage.
If it is hard water there REALLY is no problem, as the lead will not leach. In soft water or highly alkalyn water it is definitely not a GOOD idea - and with reverse osmosis water definitely a BAD idea.
Works for me and has for 50 years.
solder to flow in easily. You need to heet them BOTH - and getting the pipe hot takes more heat - so you heat it first, then when it is just about at the right temp to melt the solder you move to the fitting, the whole assembly reaches melt temp at about the same time, and the solder draws into the joint neet as you please, with no grapes or bubble-gum hanging from the joint and no leaks. No overheated fittings and burned flux either.
[snip]
One of the symptoms of lead poising is irritability...and I can't help but notice that your seem easily irritated. You might wanna have that checked out.
That might explain some things...
There's nothing "obvious" about it. Imagine how much better things could have been.
Gramma says that Gramps was looking for his flux can, the other day. Better put it back.
Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus
I have a friend with a common hobby interest that occasional requires us to solder the ends of 1/16" aircraft cable to prevent it from unraveling after we cut it.
He always pulls out his tin of flux that dates back to the 1940's. He found it in his grandfather's garage.
About 10 or 15 years ago many water municipal water systems started switching from chlorine to a compound called chloramin. There were known problems with chlorine, including health, environnemtal, and equipment related issues, plus the chloramin compounds are more stable in the water supply than chlorine. Un unknown til recently consequence, however, is that chloramin treated water is more prone to leaching lead out of pipes and soldered pipe joints. This has been confirmed by several studies. You can easily find some simply by googling "chloramin and lead." Some of these studies confirm a higher lead level in children's blood after switching to chloramin, and some claim to show that in newer homes, built after lead and lead solder was banned from use on potable water supplies, the lead levels stayed low even with the switch to chloramin.
I am not qualified to comment on whether these higher lead blood levels are in fact a serious health problem, or still below the safe limit. However, my own city switched to chloramin several years ago, and I would not use lead solder myself on water supplies. It really is not that hard to use many of the lead-free products that are available today, unlike some of the early-to-market lead-free solders from several years ago.
This seems to be the standard warning on many of the drugs advertised on the TV. The ones that are perscribed by the doctors.
Chloramine is a mixture of chlorine and ammonia and has been used for over 90 years as a secondary disinfectant in water systems. It has a longer "half-life" in the system - remaining active much longer than chlorine alone. Free chlorine is more agressive to the lead than Chloramine, but chloramine stays in the system longer, so there is a potential for more lead to end up in the water.
All depends on a lot of conditions.
Many decades ago, in the 1950's & 60s my father had lead poisoning. He worked for the National Lead Company long before OSHA regulations were thought of.
A couple of solder joints is not going to do all of that. There is very little actual exposure in a properly made joint.
solder to flow in easily.
If it works for you continue. In reality, you don't heat the pipe directly. I used to work in a department that made heat transfer coils. The guys used to solder or braze thousands of joints per day. Never did they heat the tubing first. Always the fitting.
What they did though, was custom make torch tips with two flames at 45 to 60 degrees heating the joint, flame facing up. While soldering one joint, it was pre-heating the next.
Some coils were automated for soldering. Tubes had a slight flare and the elbow sat inside with a ring of solder. They too heated the joint, not the tube.
Better that what? I grew up in Philadelphia where tens of thousands of houses had lead pipes and/or lead soldered copper. I never saw a problem from it.
Better brain function, for instance.
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