Weird plumbing problem

Tom

Actually, pinhole leaks in copper water piping is well documented. At least I thought it was. Here are some reports. It appears Maryland has a high incidence

Pinhole Leaks in Copper Pipes

http://www.wssc.dst.md.us/copperpipe/letters/investigation_fs.pdf

It can happen anywhere

Copper Pinhole Leaks

Copper Pipe

Leaky Pipes

Long story short, and I know this is the LAST thing you want to hear, is this: you have to replace the entire length of pipe. You *must* assume that other pinholes are ready to breakthrough.

I know your home has hard water, from wells. However, chlorination was recently done, correct? It's thought that chlorination combined with hard water, and certain other water chemistries, leads to pinholing

It's pretty important you take care of this at once. Any piping behind gyproc is also probably undergoing pinholing

Sorry about the bad news, but I tell it like it is ...

jay

 

Really, I'm not bulls***ing you on this.

Also, Evan, if you're reading this, your lake home may have a similar process going on too. Any time you have a length of rarely used copper pipe that gushes black/brown water for the first minute or two, it's highly likely the water chemistry is causing severe corrosion inside the piping

The best remedy to date is to replace the copper piping with pex

 

While looking at one of the links (Copper Pinhole Leaks) I was relieved to find that a study was done making sure "Harmonic divergence (the alignment of the planets)" was not the problem.

Unless, of course, qbee42 is not of this earth.

 

The study had to explicitly exclude "harmonic divergence" as a nutcase group was going around claiming it was The End Of The World.

Really

Just so you know how your taxpayer dollars are being spent: calming the fears of nutcase loons.

Remember, even nutcase loons have rights - oodles of rights matter of fact - and are allowed to vote

They are also allowed to breed, and frequently do so

Back to copper pinholing: very, very bad news

Tom is being unusually quiet. I'm picturing the 3/4 pipe finally springing thousands of little leaks, like a sprinkler hose (Except the sprinkler hose is SUPPOSED to do that), and Tom finally snapping and about ready to swing a large axe at the plumbing

I'm actually very proficient at plumbing. I just really, really hate doing it. Which is why I always do it right the first time

 

You don't barbecue year round? I've got a bright headlamp that works very well for dark winter nights. That fur hat of yours would be perfect for keeping warm while flipping burgers. Of course, you might need to build a little snow fence around the porch, but I digress.

Yes, pinholes in copper pipe are no fun at all. I've had the same thing in my 70 year old house, and it has nothing to do with any innate ability to screw things up, as Jayman alleges Tom suffers from. You can plug the current leak with a bit of solder...after you drain the pipe, of course, or you may run out of gas in your blowtorch waiting for it to heat up...buuut, more holes and leaks are inevitable. Something to do with electric currents in dissimilar metals, I was told. Once you get the hang of sweating copper fittings, it's kinda fun, but yeah, the plastic stuff is way easier, and you don't need nearly so many elbows. Or hands.

 

Can actually be proven ....

I'm pretty sure that theory has been mostly rejected. The primary culprit appears to be water pH (Either too high or too low), chlorination (Chlorammine is MUCH worse than chlorine dioxide), and some complex water chemistry eg a good science fair project

Personally, I wouldn't waste my time on a quick repair, eg the blob of solder. If there is a pinhole, there are many more just waiting to spring a leak

I no longer deal with copper pipe, as it can be a royal PITA to work with. I'm pretty good with pex, actually prefer it now. No more dinking around with el's, 90's, 45's, etc

 

Isn't corrosion a cool subject? :madgrin:

Oh, by the way, your car is doomed as well. :madgrin:

 

I often use a small portable 'camping' barbecue, which sits on a few bricks and a sheet of wood on top of the snow. When it has to - most of the winter here is just wet. The barbie lives inside most of the time so the raccoons don't make off with it. How they get it started, I have no idea.

 

I can see why your wife kept you all these years. To quote Red Green:

"If the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy"

 

Absolutely! Corrosion, chemistry in general, I find *extremely* fascinating

Especially when it happens to anyones house but mine

 

Home Depot carries Sharkbite fittings which make this kind of repair easy. No solder, cut out section, just slip on new section. I've used them and they are rated for in wall.

Welcome To Cash Acme



I am already aware of the misconceptions concerning shark attacks on humans.

 

I prefer the IPex Aqua brand, because they have good support. They also have that new bendable product that is a sandwich of pex-aluminum-pex. The primary advantage of this product is you don't need compression rings. You just slide the tubing onto the special fitting (THey also have transition fitting to go from copper to aquaPex), then tighten down the compression nut

The pex tubing must be cut precisely. That is, a sloppy cut that is not precisely 90 degrees will almost guarantee a leak at the fitting

There are a variety of tools that are used to pull the ring/pex onto the fitting, and to crimp the ring. I had to try out several different tools to find one that worked best for me. If I recall, I paid around $220 for the tool, which came with a kit including 1/2 and 3/4 adapters

If you live near a big box, they probably have them to rent. Ask to see the pex tool, they usually will demo the tool on a short chunk of pex

Supporting the pex is a lot more critical than with rigid copper. There are clamps that look sort of like the clamps you use to support electrical romex. If you wish I can take some photos and email them to you

 

Have you ever seen the front paws of a raccoon? If they trimmed their claws, they could easily play the piano, type at a computer keyboard, hotwire a car, and fire up a bbq

 

I took a graduate level course in Corrosion many years ago. I remember one of the conclusions: Your car (or really anything made of steel) is thermodynamically predetermined to become a pile of Iron Oxide. You can slow it down (change the kinetics) but you can't change the fact that Iron Oxide has a lower energy level than processed steel. It makes sense to my feeble mind: You can take iron ore out of the ground, process it into steel, but its natural state (lowest energy state) was iron ore, and it will eventually become iron ore again.

 

Sharkbite fittings are a temporary fix, likely to give you a false sense of security. Once a copper pipe has pinholes, it's rotten from within. Sadly, good plumbing only lasts so long, as Tom's wife may well attest.

 

Oh, that's too many big words for so early in the day. Just say 'rust never sleeps.'