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Default Pinprick hole in copper pipe

About 6 months ago we had our lead rising main replaced with
copper. Yesterday it developed a small leak from mid-way along
a section of pipe. On cutting it out I found the pipe showed
no signs of having been abraded on the outside; instead there
was a pinprick-sized hole, and inside the pipe there was a
small (3mm) cluster of green stuff (presumably, copper oxide).

I have never encountered this before. Would it be due to a
flaw in the pipe, or is there something (e.g. some other
metal) which can lodge on the inside of a pipe and rot it?

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Dave Plowman (News)
 
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In article .com,
wrote:
About 6 months ago we had our lead rising main replaced with
copper. Yesterday it developed a small leak from mid-way along
a section of pipe. On cutting it out I found the pipe showed
no signs of having been abraded on the outside; instead there
was a pinprick-sized hole, and inside the pipe there was a
small (3mm) cluster of green stuff (presumably, copper oxide).


I have never encountered this before. Would it be due to a
flaw in the pipe, or is there something (e.g. some other
metal) which can lodge on the inside of a pipe and rot it?


I once had a similar hole in a Wicks end feed elbow. But IIRC these are
cast, rather than drawn as tube tends to be.

I'd guess at an impurity in the copper alloy.

--
*Young at heart -- slightly older in other places

Dave Plowman London SW
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Andy Dingley wrote:
Pinholes are often caused by uncleaned flux residues. Any sign of that
on the outside?


No... and this was a few feet from the nearest soldered joint
on that pipe, though there was one on another pipe nearby.

Any chance that the hole came first, then the crystals formed around it?


Could be. Do you think anyone (plumbers' training college?)
would like a look at it? If not, I might just send it to my
local university materials science department on spec.



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Ian_m
 
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wrote in message
oups.com...
Andy Dingley wrote:
Pinholes are often caused by uncleaned flux residues. Any sign of that
on the outside?


No... and this was a few feet from the nearest soldered joint
on that pipe, though there was one on another pipe nearby.

Any chance that the hole came first, then the crystals formed around it?


Could be. Do you think anyone (plumbers' training college?)
would like a look at it? If not, I might just send it to my
local university materials science department on spec.


I thought there was a whole batch of duff copper pipe from a couple of years
ago that is now springing pin-hole leaks. Due to carbon granules in the
copper I think.

I think also the supplier/manufacturer is/was providing compensation, as I
am sure when my brother was in the plumbing trade a lot of his work was
existing pipe replacement, all paid for by the pipe manufacturer.


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