I recently completed a house for myself, which has given me new compassion and empathy for my clients! After 16 years moving my home, office, and contractors bone yard was quite a chore. One of the unexpected consequences was my wife’s new hair color, green. She is a blonde who now has green streaks in her hair and is not amused!
We have well water with a lot of iron and a water softener which is having a hard time getting it all, so our water has a very slight yellow color. We also have a hot water circulation system which seems to concentrate the contamination at the master bath, and we have copper pipe with the “new” water based flux. My plumber tells me this flux is required in our area, and it gums up screens and valves, flushes heavily at first, but will eventually wash out. A good part of it seems to have washed out in my wife’s hair! I don’t know if the iron has anything to do with the hair issue, but we are working on both problems together.
I have been using CPVC for about the last 6 years. I received a panicked call from a client who had dropped a painting behind her toilet and sheared off the supply pipe. After reminding her where the shut off for her house was, I decided maybe it was time to go back to copper. I have been in my new house just over a month and we still have some green flux specs in toilet tanks, but the screens on our faucets no longer need cleaning. My wife is ready to get her hair cut, and I am thinking about going back to CPVC. As my plumber was cleaning out the gunk from my pressure balancing shower valve I expressed my new found admiration for CPVC. He told me that a few days ago he was asked to quote a total re-piping of a house with CPVC glue chemical contamination. Allegedly the owner’s hamster had died, wife was sick, and flowguard confirmed the leaching of chemicals into the water. They say that the work was done in the winter and excessive amounts of glue were used. Now I don’t know what to think. I am not impressed with PEX fittings, but perhaps it is time to give that a try. Anyone else out there dealing with these issues?
DK
Replies
Flux has nothing to do with green hair, nether does the copper. But if you want had a filter. its the chlorie that turn hair green
I don't think so, no clorine in the system.
dkm
Anyone else out there dealing with these issues?
Once. Client had degradation problems in a new pool but the real pressing issue was their blonde daughter's hair turning green when she got in the attached spa.
Lots of testing later, we found copper in the water, concentrated in the spa. No copper coming in from the spring box. All of it was from the pool house copper lines and the heat exchanger. Around here (central Va), copper lines on well systems are unusual due to normal acidity. Eats the copper pipe from the inside out, causing myriad pinhole leaks.
Solution was to replace all the copper lines with Qest, which hasn't been a problem to date. When I refilled the pool, and spa, I used the same source, spring, but ran it through a softener to solve other problems. Took 7 wks to fill the pool, but it was winter. Both the pool problem and the spa problem went away. Client thought I was a genius. Slightly acidic water is now not a problem.
Do some more testing. Also, high iron is best handled not with a softener. Unfortunately, I also found that all the water treatment companies here lied to me. Gotta read the literature and make an informed decision.
Copper would work here if the water ph was changed, but few bother. Oddly enough, our house has neutral well water. Found that out after I didn't use copper.
PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Uhhhmmm............I just gotta ask -
Does a woman have to be a NATURAL blonde for her hair to turn green ???As for me, except for an occasional heart attack, I feel as young as I ever did. [Robert Benchley]
Does a woman have to be a NATURAL blonde for her hair to turn green ???
Nope. Depends on what's in the water. Chlorine'll do it. My experience was with a natural, and chlorine had nothing to do with it. Don't know what copper water on bleached hair does, but it's not one of the ingredients anybody should have in their water. PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
How about "mostly natural." There was some streaking going on last winter, you know it gets dark in these natural climes. The bleached areas picked up the green.
dkm
There are businesses here in LA trying to sell people on epoxy lining for copper pipe to fix and prevent pinhole leaks. I always kinda figured that was a scam, since I haven't heard of a lot of pinhole trouble here. If anything our pH tends to be neutral to just a touch alkaline.
Does anybody have experience with epoxy pipe lining?
-- J.S.
VaTom,
That does sound similar to my problem. We do not have much of a pin hole problem in this area as our water is pretty soft. We start with a 6.7ph in our well. We have 14 mg/l iron (should not exceed .3) and .21 mangenese (.05 allowed), so that is our water treatment challenge. I am sure the green is from the copper/flux, as all the flux residue is green. Think statue of liberty.
dkm
The flux boils out when the joint is soldered and then the flushing of the system will was the rest out very quickly. Copper pipe itself does not leech so it will not add any ingredients to the water. The water itself might have a high ph but the pipes and flux are safe. If it is public water then they is chloride in the system. They just no way flux can be involved with all the flushing. after the plumbing got finish plumbing the house they was properly less than a tablespoon of flux in the systen. It went down the drain the first couple seconds of water flow.
I agree with you. But what is the deal with "copper pipe
with the "new" water based flux" that DK is talking about. What's wrong with the silver Otley flux I've been using for years. Is it now outlawed in some areas or was the plummber pulling a fast one on him?
Jason
That is how I remember it as well, with the grease based flux. Not a problem. Now the powers that be in my area (Redmond Washington) have decided that we must use a water based flux that washes out of the system. The grease based flux would stay in the pipe. I have been told that someone decided that this is a problem. After building homes with copper plumbing for the last 30 years that was news to me.
I have a 4300sf house with 4 baths, and a hot water circ system. There are 3/4" supply pipes going to the large port grohe valves in the master bath. That makes for alot of pipes with plenty of joints. We have been in the house about 6 weeks, and most of the flux is washed out. Just last week I had my plumber clean out the screens which are inside of the shower valves. The hot side screen was nearly covered by green flux residue, the cold side maybe only 25% covered. I have little green flecks of flux in my toilet tank, which I have cleaned out 3 or 4 times. When I re-worked some PVC in my well house, air got into the system and blew more flux though. My best guess is that we are about done with it on the hot side, and the cold may take a bit longer.
I am not concerned about long term, or about health issues so much. I just think it is ridiculous to have to go through the inconvenience of moving into a nice new house, and then having to unclog your screens for weeks, and have green streaked hair. Yesterday my wife got her hair scrubbed and cut. The hair dresser recently had another woman in with new house green hair. I am looking for the best product to use in the future for my blonde clients! Like I said in my first post, I am hearing rummors about chemical leaching from glue in CPVC, and I have never been much impressed with PEX systems. That doesn't leave me many options! Maybe the answer is to hook up a very hot H2O tank and circulate through both hot and cold and really flush the system before I turn it over to my clients. Even after the hassel, I still think copper is going to be better in the long run than CPVC.
dkm
Edited 7/10/2004 7:44 pm ET by DK
cpvc is illegal in my township
I went to Oatey's website and they have the paste flux and a water SOLUABLE flux.
I would not think that would leave a residue to wash into the screens.
I would contact their tech support and see what they have to say.
I wonder if it is combining with some element in your water to form an unsoluable compound.
Edited 7/10/2004 10:06 pm ET by Bill Hartmann
I'm still waiting to read about the house that has green hair.
"Criticism without instruction is little more than abuse." D.Sweet
>> He told me that a few days ago he was asked to quote a total re-piping of a house with CPVC glue chemical contamination
I couldn't find anything suggesting that was a concern, other than one site which associated PVCs with dioxin, although that site was very unclear as to what the relationship is - I suspect it is a concern for dioxin as a byproduct of the manufacturing process, but that's just a guess:
http://www.proxyinformation.com/dow/policy.htm
"For example, quite a few institutions have begun to move away from PVC plastic because of its link to the potential for dioxin formation,...."
"It is as hard for the good to suspect evil, as it is for the bad to suspect good."
-- Marcus Tullius Cicero, statesman, orator, writer (106-43 BCE)