Lead solder used on water pipes

[Stephen Howard]

Probably - and probably why Evostik's 'new, improved formula' is so poor. It all started with that Valerie Singleton and her 'blunt nose scissors'.

Regards,

[Stephen Howard]

It's certainly not as good as leaded in maintenance applications ( repairs as opposed to assembly ), and it's rather more brittle. I also have doubts about its longevity with regard to moisture and corrosion.

I read somewhere that there had been problems with metallic 'hairs' forming on pcbs assembled with lead free solder.

Regards,

[Andrew Gabriel]

There were some bad batches of copper pipe with impurities which corrode into pinhole leaks. One of these was in the early 1970's IIRC, but there are probably several less well known ones too.

[dennis]

I've seen it in old 1/2" pipe, you get a mist so fine its difficult to find the actual hole. You rip it out and put in some 15 mm using speedfit.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

And you positively know that will last as long?

[dennis]

Do I care? It should last at least 25 years and the house will have been demolished or fallen down by then.

I have no worries about using speedfit in my house. I have had plastic plumbing in there for more than 25 years now, both on the water and the heating.

I will let you know if its OK in another 25 years.

[Onetap]

DI water attacks copper or stainless steel pipes, I think they usually use ABS now. P{inholing is also a problem with softened, heated water, usually downstream of joints which have not been reamed out. You can also get problems with erosion iif the flow rate is too high.

There was a query about that on here some months ago; I had an old technical memorandum about corrosive waters from Bexley Wells (I think) which did as you describe. It had high levels of dissolved CO2.

I haven't seen properly installed copper pipe perforate; I've seen lots of perforated lead.

So, why does it happen in hard-water areas, where the limescale deposits should, in theory, protect the lead from corrosion? The lead pipe is much thicker than copper.

[pjlusenet]

Thanks for all the comments folks. One of the neighbours was ill and had the water tested by the local water board. They found high levels of lead and all the houses in the (small) estate were tested.

Not sure of these figures but apparently the WHO limit for lead is 25 micro grammes of lead per litre. Reducing to 10ug soon. The house readings are now 13ug and after running the tap for 5 mins it drops to 0.6ug (so it looks like something in the house pipes causing the problem) One en-suite tap had a reading of 152ug (not drinking that!!)

The house has an enforcement order on it re the lead and the insurers are willing to pay for the work to fix the problem. It's just we don't know if it's worth all the hassle and we don't know what legal force there is with an enforcement order. e.g. could you just stall indefinitely until the lead level drops to a safe level (assuning it ever will) or is there some time limit to them.

[Rod]

Sorry if this sounds rude, but:

For gawd's sake just get it done!

IMHO there are simply too many imponderables about the effects of the lead on your health. If the level is still high after five years, it isn't going to disappear in a hurry. And you certainly don't want to have to tell any prospective buyer that you know all about the problem but haven't done anything about it.

If you did not have insurance cover I might be a bit more circumspect, but with that covered, just go for it. Opportunity for a bit of DIY as you repair the mess. :-)

[geoff]

In message , "Dave Plowman (News)" writes

The OP was talking about lead solder, not pipes

He'll prolly die of worrying about it

[geoff]

In message , Bill writes

try a 500g reel / month

[Onetap]

Answering my own question, I've just looked up the galvanic series.

I had thought lead would be up the noble end, but it's way down near the bottom, with zinc being the only likely plumbing system component on (galvanized pipe) further down the series towards the corroded end.

If you have a plumbing system with copper or bronze components, any galvanic corrosion will affect the lead or lead/tin solder. The lead will act as a sacrificial anode and lead salts will be leached into the water.