Drewski83
New Member
Looking at a house to buy and was wondering if this looked like a lead water line coming up out of the floor. Thanks for any help with this
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Possible lead water service line?
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Marlinman
In the Trades
No doubt it's lead. You can see the transition between it and the galvanized. It's the egg shape in the lead.
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Drewski83
New Member
Thank you very much
MACPLUMB
In the Trades
IT IS "SOFT" COPPER !
Nobody would be using Lead in this day and age !
Take a pocket knife and scrape along the side you will see the copper
Nobody would be using Lead in this day and age !
Take a pocket knife and scrape along the side you will see the copper
Drewski83
New Member
It was built in 1930, but ill try the knife on it. Thank you
Marlinman
In the Trades
Lead services are still in use from 70 +- years ago. Why would you wipe a joint between hard and soft copper. The egg shaped joint is what makes me think it is lead.
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Tuttles Revenge
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That looks like a copper bell joint on the end of soft copper to me too... a simple scrape with a knife will tell which is which. Lead will be lead color while copper will be... copper color
MACPLUMB
In the Trades
Looking at the close up and given the age of the House I would agree that it is LEAD !
I remember a conversation I had with a woman that grew up with lead pipes. She acknowledged that it had affected her and others she knew mentally. Nothing they could have really done about it though. Just like all the lead paint we had, and the asbestos ceilings.
I remember driving down to Los Angeles for my first time in 1972 and seeing the dirty air for the first time. My new relatives would talk about the beautiful hills above the city, but I could not see them with all the smog. Years later after they had required cleaner auto emissions and going down there to visit and yes, there are hills above the city. Who would have known.
In the Seattle we would pass through Tacoma on the way to the Ocean. The aroma of Tacoma is what we called it. They improved that too.
Lake Washington in the 50's was so polluted that families weren't letting their kids swim in it. In the 30's may parents lived on the lake and used to pump their drinking water from the lake. In just that short of time the lake went from clear to murky. We used to swim every day in the Summer and it was great for tag, swim a few feet down and nobody could see you.
In the 60's they had Metro which included installing new sewer lines and waste treatment. The lake got cleaned up and now newcomers would never guess how bad it had been.
I remember driving down to Los Angeles for my first time in 1972 and seeing the dirty air for the first time. My new relatives would talk about the beautiful hills above the city, but I could not see them with all the smog. Years later after they had required cleaner auto emissions and going down there to visit and yes, there are hills above the city. Who would have known.
In the Seattle we would pass through Tacoma on the way to the Ocean. The aroma of Tacoma is what we called it. They improved that too.
Lake Washington in the 50's was so polluted that families weren't letting their kids swim in it. In the 30's may parents lived on the lake and used to pump their drinking water from the lake. In just that short of time the lake went from clear to murky. We used to swim every day in the Summer and it was great for tag, swim a few feet down and nobody could see you.
In the 60's they had Metro which included installing new sewer lines and waste treatment. The lake got cleaned up and now newcomers would never guess how bad it had been.
Solid lead pipes have been used for hundreds of years with no problem. Usually there is a lead oxide patina that coats the inside of the pipe so that water never actually touches the pipe. Only is cases where the water is acidic or hot will the patina not stay and lead is exposed to the water. Flint Michigan had lead pipes with no problems for a hundred years. Then some government official opened up a "cheaper" water source that was acidic, which caused all the problems we read about. Now lead is a bad thing and has to be replaced in every plumbing part. That is costing the consumer several times more for plumbing products that are no where near as good a quality as the old leaded parts were. Lead got a bad rap because the government wanted to pass the blame onto anything but them. Lead was never the problem. Having someone in charge of our water systems that don't know what they are doing is the problem.
Some people are just affected mentally and the water has nothing to do with it.
Some people are just affected mentally and the water has nothing to do with it.
Tuttles Revenge
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Lead is not good in a modern water system. There is no health benefits to lead in a persons diet.
No. But lead is an important part of the recipe for many metals. The Romans used solid lead pipes. And it wasn't the lead pipes that caused them problems, but rather adding lead to their wine and drinking wine from lead goblets. Unless the metal erodes and dissolves into the water, which is rare, the lead stays in the metal and doesn't get into the water. Those guys in Flint made us all afraid of lead because they didn't want to put the blame on themselves where it belonged. You can have solid lead pipes if the people running the water systems know what they are doing. The only thing taking lead out of plumbing did was allow us to keep letting idiots run our water systems. But I can assure you that is not the only mistake those idiots are making.
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