A pin hole leak occurred in 3/4 copper pipe in my house a month ago, causing some minor damage, and I guessed it might be just a bad piece of pipe. Then a few days ago the same thing happened in my son’s place across the street. Both places are entirely copper, mine new only 25 years ago. No dissimilar metal contact locally, and leaks far from street hook up. Galvanized lasts longer than this. Bad pipe? Bad water? I’ve got a mess of copper in a beautiful 4 story victorian house. Are there solutions?
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Replies
are you on a well or public water? this is a common occurance on well water.
How did you fix the leak? I would have eyeballed the thickness of the pipe. My bet is that it's all eroded.
City water. Neither one of these leaks occurred near concrete or the street,and both ten feet from a tub connection. The hangers I could see were all copper. One leak was in verticle run, the other horizontal and both were lines in use daily. I chopped out five feet and sweated in a new piece. Next to the pin hole was other evidence of green corrosion. This was an easy spot because it was in the basement and only wrecked some drywall, the rest of the house would be a disaster. I also have hot water heat in copper. Can the PH be changed at the meter with colligan type system?
I saw this on thhis old house. Rust particles from the water heater had attached to the copper pipes which set up a galvanic corrosion process. They had pinholes in the hot line only. The pipe was shown with a microscope and you could see the particles and erosion. So the water heater and leaking line was replaced.
I'm assuming the pin hole was at 6:00 on the horizontal run-- You saw green spots inside the pipe adjacent to the leak? Make sure you remove all bad pipe that you can. This usually happens within 15' of the water heater and sometimes next to fittings, due to metal particles settling on bottom of the pipe and long period of non use which will allow a very localized area of high acidity.
The leak on your vertical run has me baffled. Was there corrosion inside of the pipe next to this leak also? Sometimes excessive flux (acid base) will cause pitting next to a fitting if not flushed or long period of nonuse following installation.
Sometimes an old water heater causes problems. Corrosion can result when the anode tube in the water heater gets too old and is no longer functioning properly..++++++++++++++++
-Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain-
Boats, The verticle run was cold water.FK
On the Virginia side also. Hartwood Va on well water, hot and cold runs. Not a pretty problem.
An engineer showed us the effects of solder on a pipe once. He showed that any solder drips that are left on a pipe will erode the wall of the pipe..if the solder joints are sloppy and drips are left, the pipe will wear away..
Of course, we all were skeptical of this until I started doing some work on my own plumbing..The house is 40 years old...we had to relocate some pipe..A couple of joints from the original plumber were pretty messy..sure enough the wall of the copper right at the dripped solder was almost gone...
Moral..wipe the joints clean when you solder!!!
As a past inspector,
Sounds like you have city water if the hook up is from the street.
Any copper thats next to concrete needs to be sleeved with plastic or similar soft sleeve.
If movement occurs in a loose line where there is metal clamps the smae can happen often on connections that can have movement such as tub connections.
On a ditch run that has sharp rocks such as flag stone it is reccomended that sand be replaced on the cover up of the ditch or it be sleeved.
Often time with the winter months we are in you could be freezing and rethawing of ground which changes in movements in the ground.
Often when something hard is over a line such as a driveway or traffic is allowed over a line and the ground freezes it changes settlement.
The rememdy is to use plastic strapping, clamps , sleeving and sand surrounding lines in ditches. The lines should also below the freeze depth for your local. Any lines under driveways or vehicles access should be plastic pipe sleeved.
Tim
Probably acidic water. Did you test the ph of the water? If it's acidic you'll need a neutralizer. If you switch to pvc piping, the acid still attacks the brass in the fixtures...which in turn will show up as high lead levels. Acidic water needs to be neutralized, for all kinds of reasons.......View Image
Where in the house did the leaks occur?
As mentioned, it could be acidic water.
Also, I have read, but don't know how accurate the claims were, that at times there has been poor quality imported copper pipe from Asia.
I don't think you want to hear this, but years ago in the N.E. part of the country there were a lot of similar probs. with copper water lines, underground gas lines were also having this prob. the gas was a ground problem, the water lines were caused by the composition of the water. You need to have your water checked. If you have something in the water reacting on the copper it won't go away. Sorry
Franz -- go here for source of authority http://wsscwater.com/copperpipe/pinholescroll.cfm
I have about 10 and thought I was sitting on a time bomb -- went down to our lower level one July 4th and my feet started squishing on the carpet -- the whole place was soaked -- I just could not live like this -- I ended up replacing all of my pipes for just under $12,000 -- it was a horrific mess -- not so much the piping but tearing out all of the plaster and then replastering -- dust and junk every where -- Good Luck - Dudley
This is a big problem in the DC/MD/VA area. WSSC says they don't know what causes this problem. I've had one pinhole, two over at my Moms...Lots of friends have had them as well...
Yup, my sister too. I find it interesting that the problem seems only to be on the Maryland side of the Potomac, and not in Virginia. I believe WSSC finally started adding something to the water to reduce the corrision.
Is it type K, L, or M? Here In LA, type M is only allowed for non-pressure applications, like relief valve drains and smitty pan drains.
-- J.S.
Franz,
Pinhole leaks such as you describe is a problem in many places. The problem is such an issue in Maryland that the State’s Water Commission did an extensive study on the problem. Here’s the link: http://www.wssc.dst.md.us/copperpipe/pinholescroll.cfm