On Thu, 24 Feb 2011 20:44:27 -0800 (PST), "
wrote:


old galvanized fittings tend to rust and weld together, no matter how
careful you are its easy to twist a connected line and cause another
leak either immediately or in the future.....

old galavanized is generally packed with rust, making you wonder how
water even managed to get thru the rust

First off, I've only dealt with Lake Michigan water.
That's all I'm talking about.
Probably pretty much the same water as in the other Great Lakes.
Don't know how many millions use that water.
But I'm just talking about Chicago area Lake Michigan water.
It' s not rust restricting the pipes. It's scale.
Deposited minerals.
Some rust, but mostly scale.

It ain't "easy to twist a connected line" unless you just don't know
how to handle two wrenches at the same time.
Fittings don't "tend to rust and weld together."
I've taken apart plenty of 50 year old fittings and only the first 2-3
threads were rusted.
In the steel mills we would routinely hit an old threaded end with a
wire brush, re-dope, and crank it back in.
When I re-piped the 50 year old galvanized in my last house 30 years
ago I left all the old galvanized pipes in the plumbing wall - they
weren't scaled up - and had no trouble connecting the new feeds to
them. Nothing has leaked since.

Looks like the water is different where you're at.
I can see examples of what you said all over the net, so I don't doubt
that galvanized will rust and scale up faster in some places.
Around here that takes +50 years.

Here's the funny thing I found when I looking around the net.
It looks like copper leaks more than galvanized and doesn't last as
long. Pinhole leaks, different types of corrosion, joints starting to
leak after repairing other leaks, etc.
It doesn't scale up. Looks like if it could scale, leaks and
corrosion would kill it before that would happen anyway.
Didn't do a "scientific" survey, but copper sure doesn't look good.
I was surprised by the copper horror stories.
Kind of thought copper was the cat's meow.

I considered using copper when I re-piped my last house, but since I
cut/threaded a lot of pipe and had the tools I went with galvanized.
Hadn't sweated copper either, and still haven't.
Like I said, galvanized is like riding a bike to me.
Now I wouldn't even consider copper if I have to re-pipe this house.
Galvanized or PEX.. But I don't know if PEX meets code here.

--Vic