<<<"The copper pipes get green spots, and then they just start dripping," says Hoffman. "We’ve had to repair pipes in hundreds of houses. In a lot of houses that are less than ten years old, we have had to replace all the pipes in the house.
…corroding copper tubing has recently been reported in cities as far apart as Phoenix, Ariz. and Andover, Mass. Other cities reporting problems with pinhole leaks in copper include Saugus, Calif., Lima, Ohio, and Jacksonville, Fla. In Jacksonville, the problems were so serious that the city, in an unprecedented step, banned the use of copper for residential water supply piping.>>>
I suspect the pinhole leaks in copper pipe in the homes had to do with acidic water or flawed pipes. Most health/building codes would demand acidic water from a well be softened before use. I also suspect the manufacturer of the pipe is in the process of being sued. I have worked in homes with 50+ year old copper water supply pipe which have never experienced leaks, so I'm somewhat skeptical of a general claim that the pipes are going to leak. On the other hand I have ripped out a lot of leaking plastic pipe and replaced it with copper in the last 15 years.
<<<Jim Edwards, an estimator with W. J. Maloney Plumbing Co. in Phoenix, has had first-hand experience with copper corrosion. A leak in the copper tubing under the slab in Edwards’ own home cost $7,800 to dig up and repair, and he believes that aggressive soil was responsible. "If the house happens to be in a certain area, the pipe will just eat away," said Edwards, who reports that problem soil is found throughout Maricopa County in Arizona>>>
You bold lettered a lot of things, but perhaps what should have been bolded was the cause,..aggressive soil, which could imply acidic soil, likely a local problem. Some municipalities in Canada have this problem in isolated regions, and their regulations and building codes would preclude the use of copper piping in the ground in those areas, but you have taken that, and I think, generalized it to cover the rest of the world.
Being involved in building hundreds of homes, commercial leaseholds and commercial buildings in Canada, principally in Ontario and Quebec, my experience has been such soils are rather rare here. I remember having to install plastic in the ground on two commercial installations where the ground had been contaminated by pollution (acid). Once we were through the concrete pad, the code demanded we switch to copper for the interior. The municipalities I work in now, forbid the use of plastic in the home, although you could use it underground from the main to the meter, few do,...and I have yet to do such an installation except from a well.
Things may change, and there are lots of local differences,...that's the world I/we live in. As techniques and materials improve, new rules can be written. Remember as well that humans write the rules,...and I believe they have been known to make mistakes (ggggggggggggggggg).
Each municipality can enforce their own rules, and the province dictates the building code up here. The province has banned the use of plastic pipe in residential interiors because too many installations leaked, but perhaps the fact that the plastic pipes were very popular in cottage installations that were not winterized contributed to their ban because at the end of the cottage season the pipes would be sucked out, but some water would settle in the sags and low spots of the lines and provide a source of still water that bacteria could multiply in creating a health hazard.
I have also replaced plumbing in many homes caused by sedimentation of various iron and calcium salts in copper pipes that eventually plug the pipe up. Generally these occur when the supply of water is from a well, not from treated water supplies in cities that generally soften their water before piping it through the mains. Plastic pipe might help in such an environment, as precipitation of such salts would be less likely to occur, although I have seen plastic pipes with calcium salt precipitation inside, but I'm unsure why it occurred,...perhaps some water will precipitate salts in anything.
I would encourage you to install the plastic system because such a system may prove better than current practice,...and the experience you and others have may allow our codes up here to be modified to allow its use. It certainly can be cheaper, and less time consuming to install in new construction. |
