The dirty and nasty brass laundry faucet in my basement that’s original to my house leaks and needs to be replaced. I’m not about to drink water from that thing, but I’d like to be able to with the replacement faucet since my “Man Cave” is next door and it would save me a trip up the stairs. The internet seems to disagree on this point, I’ve heard that you should be able to drink from any tap in the house, and I’ve heard that they use all kinds of nasty chemicals in faucets that aren’t intended for potable water. The specific faucet I was thinking of is:
Any thoughts? I am aware of the use of lead based solder in houses of my vintage and let the water run for a bit before drinking from it. Installing a conventional bath faucet is possible, but considerable more work due to having to extend and route the pipes to under the sink.
First, I hate navigating the Home Depot site. What a wreck.
That being said, the faucet specifications do say it meets ASME A112.18.1, which is good. However, the specifications do not mention compliance with ANSI/NSF 61/9, which specifically covers lead content.
But since you already suspect lead solder in your house based on it’s age, and are taking steps to mitigate lead such as flushing the pipes, I don’t think that this faucet presents any significant additional risk if you continue to do that.
If you’re concerned, go to a plumbing store and see if they have options that will work for you without rerouting the pipes, or at the very least, see if you can get a stainless steel spout for the one you pick.
Another option would be to get a water dispenser and connect it directly to the copper with a saddle valve and some RO tubing.
Lead is added to, some, brass to make it machine better.
(I looked and this fixture is, apparently, solid brass. I can’t imagine it wouldn’t be safe to drink from. Also, I can’t imagine this faucet isn’t providing the same water as the rest of the faucets in the house.)
That’s interesting. Not a field of technology I know a lot about.
Why do they use it for keys? I’d have thought you want a key to be fairly rigid, whereas (at a layman’s guess) adding lead might make it more pliable?
It’s a tiny amount of lead and it’s added because it improves the finish when it’s machined.
(With keys, when a key blank is cut to match the lock pinning.)
By the time the water has run for about 3 seconds, you are getting the same water you get from everywhere else in your house, so run the water for about 5 seconds before filling your cup (or coffee maker). Worst case, run the water for a 30 seconds or so and you’ll have flushed the entire piping back to where the feed to the downstairs faucet splits off from the rest of the household plumbing. At that point, any contaminant will be extremely minimal, if any. You won’t contaminate a moving stream by passing it through a brass fixture for a quarter-second on its way through. I usually run my water for about 10 seconds anyway, to get cooler water - not room temperature - coming out of the tap before I use it.