Hello Everyone,
I was just thinking, or home if 30 years old. That means the water pipes are 30 years old. How safe are water pipes? I mean how does a water pipe stay clean of things like mold?
I would think that the running water would keep mold from growing, but obviously water isn’t constantly flowing. Although I guess with the pipes always being full with water might not let mold grow?
It’s certainly possible for various organisms to grow in pipes, but there’s really not much food in water, so it’s not generally a problem. Also, city water is chlorinated, which tends to keep the critters at bay.
As for how safe they are - have you heard of huge numbers of people dying from water-born diseases in the US? Because, I haven’t.
Oh that kind of water pipes.
To be clear, I wasn’t worried about the pipes. Of course it isn’t a problem because as mentioned above, there isn’t people getting sick on a large scale. I guess what I wanted to know is why isn’t it dangerous. Moisture sitting anywhere for a long time isn’t healthy, so what keeps the pipes from becoming a breeding ground for bad things?
“so what keeps the pipes from becoming a breeding ground for bad things?”
Flowing water is what. When I worked at a hospital we had an extensive program to track down and remove water pipes that had been capped off but left connected. The main concern was (I think) Legionnaires, but C-diff and others were also mentioned.
So stagnant water is the problem.
Stagnant water is really only a problem if there are places where air pockets can get trapped in the pipes. It’s one of the reasons why plumbing codes forbid things like lots of vertical elbows in a short span. Copper also has inherent antibacterial properties, though newer construction mostly uses PEX these days.
Moisture is different than ‘full’ of water. If you mist a piece of bread every day, it’ll get moldy. If you look at the rocks along the edge of a body of water, they’ll be slimy, the inside of a copper pipe will have some patina, but that’s usually about it.
Municipal water is sanitized and chlorinated prior to entering the system, but I’m guessing a lot of anaerobic organisms rely on human error to make their way into the system. They don’t just appear somewhere downstream.
One place, however, you will find problems is in water tanks. Specifically the old wooden rooftop tanks in New York. Those are disgusting.
It should also be noted that copper has it’s own anti-microbial properties. The water delivered to your house is sent via a variety of materials excluding copper, the water from the street to your sink is almost certainly copper. As more and more new construction moves towards PEX, perhaps we’ll see an uptick in waterborne sicknesses.
What can be a problem is mineral deposits in the pipes, which can decrease the capacity.
You can find videos of fire sprinklers going off and the first spray is very black and nasty looking.
Exactly. Think about it this way… how long would say… an ounce of water stay in the pipe? Not very long, I’m guessing. And I’m also guessing that the chlorination both kills some bacteria outright, and inhibits everything else for long enough that the amount of time the water spends in most pipes is fine.
To be fair, there’s a difference between water sitting in steel pipes for years and water that’s regularly moving through copper pipes.
Even so, rust isn’t bad for you.
I have an R.O. system (just to improve the taste of our tap water). When I replace the pre-filter, it is always black as coal. A year of filtering all the tiny rust particles turns the pure-white filter black. But, it’s just a cosmetic issue - even drinking that rust wouldn’t be harmful (might even be beneficial).
We’re on well water, so no chlorine for us.
What’s an “R.O. system”?
Yes, just a visualization of the OP in an extreme case.
I just though of another one. I had to get a new boiler installed late last year and the water drained from the old one was pretty gross. However, it wasn’t nearly as dark as in the sprinkler vid.
Pin holes in older copper pipes can be a problem.
City engineers are examining potential causes, including quality and age of the pipe materials, installation methodology and workmanship, unexpected foreign debris in the copper pipe, mixed metals in the plumbing, and water composition
I had an iron soil pipe that was starting failing at 50 years. Let’s just say the pipes’ leaks are somewhat self sealing, shaped like brown mushrooms, and yes they’re that shade of brown’. We had to take part of the vertical pipe out, and put a plastic pipe inside, and seal it at each end with a resin was used as a seal, or silicon. I think oakum was used between the iron pipe and the plastic pipe, anyway, and it makes me feel like singing sea chanties when I pass the soil pipe to the washing machine.
The interesting point of this story is the removal of 6 feet of iron vertical pipe, made every flush virbrate 2x as loud. I miss the quietness.
Iron Oxide. And it is a real problem – every time you drain the fire system pipes for any reason, they get filled back up again with fresh water, which is full of dissolved oxygen, which oxidizes the insides of the pipes, and if you try to clean that stuff out by draining the system …
Standing water in copper pipes picks up lead from soldered joints, and possibly from old brass. How much of a problem that is depends on how long the water stands, and how hungry or acidic your water is.
Two of the reasons I’ve always heard for pin holes in older copper pipes are small bits of debris causing turbulence downstream (like a speed bump). After hundreds of thousands of gallons of water hits that little speed bump it can eventually wear a hole through the copper. The other being too much flux used when soldering. If too much is used and clumps of it get inside the pipe the acid can eat away at the pipe over time. They do make water soluble flux, designed to wash away when the water is turned on, but it doesn’t work as well.