Well the last time I posted here I was asking how to get over a divorce that I didn’t want. As fate would have it after 8 months we got back together and are planning on getting married in November.
But that is not what I am here about, in the time we were divorced she bought a house, sort of. It needs a lot of work and we are in the process of some major remodel to get it ready to sell and maybe make a little off of it. I have been remodeling the two bath rooms, shower surround, tile floors, sinks, etc… One thing that I noticed is that all of the waste lines in the house are solid copper! I have never seen this before and wondered is this is normal, the house is was built in the late 60’s. The main waste line is 4″ copper and then smaller from the sinks and tubs running into it, all soldered together.
I don’t really plan on taking it out just curious.
Thanks, Mike
Replies
Some communities in the Chicago area require it today. Specifically, I have seen it in Orland Park.
It makes the plumbers happy. Soldering those properly ain't fun.
Yep. That's what they used then. Plastics were not available. Four inch is a little large, often three inch and larger was cast iron and the smaller lines were copper.
If you were to take some out for remodeling you could get good money for it as scrap, as also for any wiring you remove.
Ma here, house built 1960, copper waste
bobl Volo, non valeo
Baloney detecter WFR
ok she left... purchased a house that upon inspection needed much work... got back together with you... you are now doing the work on the house that she purchased when she left... now you are needed again...
hmmm..... maybe i'm reading too much into that... but i heard this story once about a guy that was paint'n a fence... his friends happened by and.....
and the pipes are made of what? and filled with what?
p
I lost focus of the topic on this thought as well.
Some old proverb lingering in the back of my head about buying the same car twice...
So is there an advantage of having CU DWV lines?
One of my "Thats not code" ideas was to run a water line under bathroom tile flooring using the hot intake to the shower. As you take a shower, the hot water line would heat the floor before you hop out. A diverter line with a small valve could reroute around this for summertime.
Then the brain kicks in: A shower that may not be warm enough to start or heats up as you go. But hey, those boiler run heated floors work ok, why not this? For that matter, a heat balancing shower valve would help...... Hmmmmm..........Those who can make you believe in absurdities can make you commit atrocities- Voltaire
About 1-2 years ago there was an someone that was a self-proclaimed energy expert (IIRC, but not trying to misslead) on the forum. He was offering an book or online info for $$$. And I really don't remember what he was promoting.But one of things that he said that he did was to take copper tubing and make towel rack ladder and run the hot water line through it. A home made towel warmer.
Nice idea, but sort of ghetto on the look.Those who can make you believe in absurdities can make you commit atrocities- Voltaire
Not really.You can polish it so that it is bright coper and get rid of the excess solder at the joint. The clear coat it.Or get it chrome plated.Or get it powder coated in any number of colors.
If there solid copper, how do they flow waste?:>)
My f.i.l. has them his house was built about the same time. Guess copper was cheaper back then.
Where you at? Were in Michigan.
Congratulations on working out your marriage. Hope it works out for you.
> Guess copper was cheaper back then.Yeah, it was kind of odd. Copper was cheap then, then it got expensive suddenly in the late 60s, almost overnight. Probably that killed the use of copper drains and drove folks toward plastic.
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. --James Madison
If any of you have seen the GPX heat recovery system, these waste lines may be a blessing in disguise. If you coil 1/2 inch copper water line for the line entering your water heater around the waste line, it will pick up the waste heat from the shower or dishwasher or washer and prewarm it as it enters the water heater. You can get pretty good savings doing this!
For that matter, if you have a dummy tank or holding tank before your water heater, water sitting there will warm to room temp(works if you have a basement that is not heated but warmer than intake water). That way the water heater is again getting warmer intake. Easy way to save energy. Those who can make you believe in absurdities can make you commit atrocities- Voltaire
"For that matter, if you have a dummy tank or holding tank before your water heater, water sitting there will warm to room temp(works if you have a basement that is not heated but warmer than intake water). That way the water heater is again getting warmer intake. Easy way to save energy."That is a zero sum game.Except in the summer there is a slight gain.You have to pay to heat the basement and the cold water is cooling it off so you need more heat into.Just running the furnace a little more and the WH a little less.
Likewise, wrapping expensive copper tubing around waste lines to capture a little heat from shower or dishwasher drain would probably take 600 years to recoup the cost.
How much of the time is there warm water in those waste lines anyway? A dishwasher drains long after it fills, so the timing isn't right there. During a shower, I would guess that by the time a 1/4-full waste line warmed up enough so it could transfer some heat across the miniscule surface area of water pipe contacting it, the shower would be over already.And I wouldn't want to predict the odds of pin-hole leaks from coiling the tubing so tightly and from turbulence generated inside that coiled copper. BruceT
No, it is different on recapturing the heat from the drains.You are righ about the DW.But on a shower for every drop of water out the shower head and down the drain cold water is drawn in and it will be heated in the WH. Now that replacement drop most likely won't make back into that shower unless you take very only ones.But it will reduce the amount of energy needed to reheat the tank.Now I have not looks at the cost effectiveness. I think that it was at one time. And energy cost have gone up, but not near as fast as copper for the heat exchanger.
I think it can be cost-effective, but it requires a bit more sophisticated design. There are special heat exchangers made for this duty.I think one could even go so far as to build a grey water holding tank, and design it, with clever fluidics, so that warmer water goes to one side and cold to the other, in a partitioned tank. A heat exchanger in the tank would then be used to temper water heater feedwater or to augment a ground source heat pump.
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. --James Madison
My point was that a heat exchanger depends upon contact between the feed line and the waste heat source with a large temperature difference. Just coiling copper tubing around a waste pipe gives miniscule contact for heat transfer. Very little heating would take place even if the waste line were very warm.Add the fact that the waste-water will not be very hot to begin with (having been cooled by the air and the shower tiles) and that a 1 1/2" waste pipe doesn't run full, so by contact with waste water on maybe half its surface it will take quite a while to get warm. I think the shower would be pretty much over before any heat transfer would begin.BruceT
While I was thinking of one of these. There is good thermal conduction between waste and supply.http://gfxtechnology.com/But I don't want to bother download the PDF files to see what they actually claim for a return.
A. How can GFX be so effective; it seems too simple?
Gravity-fed, falling-film, double-wall-vented, balanced heat exchange is far from simple, as you will learn by pondering these 21 questions & issues raised by consumers, engineers, architects, scientists, builders and editors. GFX's simplicity derives from ultra-high transfer coefficients, patented technology, years of engineering development and help from Mother Nature.
B. How will GFX benefit me?
Comfort: GFX can triple the shower-capacity of an electric storage water heater (while halving the cost of a shower) by recycling heat lost down the drain;
Convenience: GFX can eliminate waiting for a shower as the water heater recovers by tripling the First Hour Rating of an electric storage water heater;
Conservation: GFX can save vast amounts of energy (and reduce air pollution) according to estimates by a U.S. Department of Energy consultant: "If all U.S. domestic water heating were to be accomplished by burning oil, then the annual oil consumption would be reduced by about 2 billion gallons per year if this device is installed in all houses with basements." [Note: DOE's conservative estimate excluded nonresidential, commercial, industrial, state and federal applications, as well as GFX's vast beneficial impact upon air pollution, thermal pollution of waterways and its potential to help conserve water in applications as simple as shortening shower warm-up times to ending a doubly-wasteful practice of adding cold water to hot industrial wastewater to avoid Btu taxes, notwithstanding GFX enables cost-effective cooling via recycling up to 85% of the available heat.]
C. How can GFX halve the cost of a hot shower, yet triple the shower-capacity of an electric water heater?
Typically, a 105F shower fed by 45-75F water at 2.25 gpm depletes a water heater's stored energy at rates of 20 to 10 kW until the heater's upper-element is energized and these rates are reduced to 15.5 to 5.5 kW, respectively. By feeding back 10 to 4 kW (50% to 40%), the Model G3-60 can further reduce these depletion rates to extend showering-times by factors of about 2.8 to 3.7. In fact, third party testing at Old Dominion University found GFX boosted First Hour Ratings of a high efficiency 50-gallon electric water heater from 60 to 180 gallons. The significance of this finding is that gas-marketing ads attempt to move consumers away from clean and safe electric water heating by advertising "GAS WATER HEATERS HEAT TWICE AS FAST"; notwithstanding gas (and oil) water heaters are "the largest single-source polluter[s]."
D. Will GFX also improve the performance of gas and oil water heaters?
Of course, recycling energy with GFX will improve the performance of every water heater, but the improvement may not always be as dramatic as with electric heaters since modern residential gas and oil water heaters generally provide an adequate supply of hot shower water. Notorious exceptions are the millions of combination oil systems operating with lime-coated tankless-coil water heaters. Such systems rated at 140,000 Btu/hr input (1 gal/hr firing rate) could easily satisfy a space heating load of 100,000 Btu/hr, yet fail to deliver 35,000 Btu/hr for water heating. With a water heating efficiency of under 25%, they become one of the least efficient of all water heaters and one of the worst single-source air polluters. Consequently, such water heaters cannot sustain normal showers; even with low-flow showerheads demanding 57,000 to 68,000 Btu/hr and a 50% firing rate increase to 1.5 gal/hr (which degrades overall system efficiency). In this case, by recycling 27,000 to 34,000 Btu/hr and cutting the water heater's load GFX can provide many benefits:
an endless shower at normal firing/showering rates,
a boost in water heating efficiency from less than 25% at an inadequate flow rate to around 60% at the desired shower flow rate,
reduced scalding if the set-point is lowered from the 160 to 180 range generally selected by oil company servicemen in response to customer complaints,
far less point-of-use air pollution, and
eliminate a secondary water heater costing far more than GFX to install and operate.Those who can make you believe in absurdities can make you commit atrocities- Voltaire
Well, blow me down. You and Etherhuffer and FrankDuVal have shown me the error of my wasteful ways - if I lived somewhere where houses had basements and I had a houseful of people taking showers.Living as I do with just two people in a house with no basement and a ground floor shower, naturally I couldn't envision how wrapping pipes around the drain could work.With a factory-built unit like GFX, I can see how wastewater heat recovery could be significant, especially for a hotel or other multi-user situation. Makes me think of the HO who had me install an in-line water heater to replace his inadequate 30g tank heater. High efficiency and on-demand-only heating was supposed to save gas usage big time. I asked him a couple of months later how much lower his August gas bill was than the previous year. "It's higher", he said. "How can that be?" I asked. "My teen aged sons don't run out of hot water now", he said "so they stay in the shower twice as long as before".BruceT
I have a friend who had the GPX exchanger installed in his sewer exit line in a vertical position ( the recomended position).
The exit water is supposed to sheet on the sides so thermal conduction is at its best. The copper lines heat very rapidly when the shower is turned on. His waste water flows in PVC, so thermal loss before the heat exchanger is a lot less than if it was copper or cast iron.His house was designed with this exchanger in mind, so all the drains in the house converge for one final vertical fall in the basement. I think it is 60" tall, 3" ID.Heat loss through tile? Fiberglass shower stalls seem to have aan insulating effect, especially when there are fiberglass bats installed behind them (very common in this area). Ceramic tile is for those "up scale" McMansions! Our less expensive McMansions come with fiberglass one piece shower stalls. No grout to clean. ;)He is pleased with it, though no engineering test have been run.Frank DuVal You can never make something foolproof because fools are so ingenious.
Here in San Francisco, plastic is illegal (for supplies or drains, except in some single-story buildings, of which there are very few). Most DWV is copper up to 2", then CI is used. At least before CU was so expensive.Copper is better than CI, smoother inside, better flow.Bill
Yes, copper waste lines were standard in the 60s and up through the introduction of rigid plastics. They are still required here for certain types of commercial work.
That's the good news; it means if you have to re-do any of the DWV pipe, you should still be able to get fittings. (The bad news is they'll cost you and you'll have to buy an oxy/mapp torch to sweat 'em. Butane won't easily get the whole pipe & fitting hot enough.)
Dinosaur
How now, Mighty Sauron, that thou art not brought
low by this? For thine evil pales before that which
foolish men call Justice....
My house (built 1974) and my parents' house (built 1968) both have copper waste plumbing. Local supply house still carries it but it is insanely expensive. I did a kitchen remodel six years ago and the plumber used a Fernco and plastic to tie to the copper sink drain instead of using new copper DWV fittings.
We have them in NJ houses built in the 60's too.
Headstrong, I'll take on anyone!
One more thing to factor into that decision is whether the copper runs thru holes in the framing. There may be places where the hole required for copper is legal, but the larger hole for PVC or ABS would excede the code limit. IIRC, 3" thru a 2x6 is one of those cases.
-- J.S.
This was common in some areas during the 60s. My parents' house was built with copper drain pipe, ca 1966. A lot lighter and easier to deal with than cast iron, and plastic drain pipe was just getting started at that time.
I still see some copper drains in commercial construction here.
Nothing wrong with it unless the stuff you're flushing down the drain is excessively corrosive. The main problem would be that it's going to be hard (but not impossible) to find fittings if you need to make changes/repairs.
It was code to use that in SE Pa. back in the old days of the 80's. I know, I got tagged for using PVC vent stack.
I love copper, work with it in some fashion almost daily, but for DVW, I think it is unjustified.
Check the law where you are, it may have changed.
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
" If ya plan to face tomorrow, do it soon"
Was still required at least into the mid 90's in some of those SE PA townships. Dont' know about the 00's.
Jim
Never underestimate the value of a sharp pencil or good light.
I was in Lansdale then, born in Norristown in 60, lived all around Bucks/Montgomery/ Berks and Lehigh.
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
" If ya plan to face tomorrow, do it soon"
My folks live in a late 60s split level with copper waste lines.
I stare at the vertical line in the utility room that comes down from the kitchen - I think it's a 4" diameter, maybe larger.