Plumbing with lead solder

Aug 20, 2012 29 Replies

I moved some stuff about in the bathroom last weekend and used solder ring joints for the plumbing, adding a bit of solder to each joint.



I have a roll of fat, cumbersome solder I normally use so treated myself to something finer which was much easier to use. It's dawned on me since that I hadn't looked for solder free, and in fact have used 60/40.



Does this pose a realistic risk? Shall I redo all the joints (5 or so)?



We Brita filter the water and the bathroom is upstairs.



It doesn't meet modern regs, but people have lived in houses for decades with leaded solder in all the joints.

This is what i'm thinking. When I moved into the house it still had some lead pipe.

Many of us grew up with lead piping. Many of us grew up with lead soldered copper, and many of us still live with lead soldered copper.

NT

Come on, how many homes have lead pipes in them, this one and many many others!

Brian

and we are all perfectly sane... you only need to look around here ;-)

If you are in a hard water area, it will get covered in a scale layer anyway.

Solder ring fittings don't need any solder adding. If you added more solder to the outside it probably just ran off and never went anywhere near the inside of the joint.

If you live in a soft water area you need to worry about lead, if you live in a hard water area you don't.

Check to see if your filter removes lead if you are worried, some do and some don't.

Yeah I know, but if a job's worth doing, it's worth going to extra effort to do it wrong.

Is it still 'plumb' - ing if you don't use lead?

What's Greek for plastic if you are using that stuff.

Don't be daft - the Greeks don't use plastic solder.

You probably absorbed more lead through your skin handling the solder than you'll get from the water over the next twenty years. How much water do you actually ingest in the bathroom compared to how much is used?

FYI Plumb is from the Latin.

Andy

In message , R D S writes

You can dissolve solder free solder with dehydrated water

If it's lead-free, then it's stannuming ;)

JGH

You probably don't need to worry in a soft water area either. We live in one and the water company dose the water to prevent lead dissolving in it. Ten years ago I did the designs for some of the panels controlling the dosing systems.

SteveW

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