A Copper Tubing Primer, Please
 

John‰]
wrote:
Just had a new central air unit installed and it had to be moved to a
new location, so a new line set was required. I had a coil of 3/4"
copper that I had traded for, so I offered it to my HVAC guy for the
line set. He looked at it and said that he couldn't use it because it
was "plumbing copper" and was manufactured with a seam. If you tried
to run R-22 through it, it would leak like a sieve.

He is completely trustworthy and I have no reason to question him, but
I started wondering about the types of copper tubing.

If you can't use "plumbing copper" for refrigerant, can you use
"refrigeration copper" for plumbing? What tubing do you need for
natural gas? What are the correct names for the different types of
copper?

Can someone school me please?

John

My father was an AC mechanic, so of course our house was plumbed with
AC copper. Thicker walls as I remember it, because of the pressure.

When we were all out of the house and my father was in the hospital for
something, my mother had some plumbing problem and called a plumber.
His fittings and such wouldn't work and he was confused. My mother
called me and asked if I knew what was up and I suggested that the
plumber go back to his truck and get his AC equipment. All was then
fine, but we had one confused plumber. Thankfully the guy also did a
little AC on the side.