So you're on tank water?

Not good at being clear am I?
Mains water leak in the cold pipe. Dry it out macro?????

decrepit said..
Not good at being clear am I?
Mains water leak in the cold pipe. Dry it out macro?????

from outside if touching any other surface...
for example, if you put any other metal thing on the copper pipe
and the connection is wet
then Volta battery has created that dissolves one of those or both metals...

But that is only one of the possibilities
I have a similar copper pipe completely perforated inside a hot water cylinder.I did replace this solar hot water cylinder now with simple full electric
but from curiosity, I did open the broken up
To see what is the problem and why.

Now I know. Manufacturer fault ( AUSSIE MADE NOT CHINA) in design.That copper spiral was inside a copper cylinder but welded with tin/lead to supporting arms.Failure was exactly above this welding spot where two different metals met.
electrolysis..

so one may blame bacteria
the other chemicals that could dissolve copper -
and electrolysis is the last but most likely if the damage is the focus to a small area


you could blame Volta, his fault not the plumber

anyway
from the chemical analysis, you could see most likely blue crystals near damage CuSO4 if that is sulfur bacteria at play

but if you flush your pipe with chlorine you will create another fascinating in color chemical. Cupric Chloride.
this stuff attract water -



but if stuff was more like black , copper sulfide is most likely indeed



I hope that I did help
to make right decision
to replace that stuff with plastic
nothing eat plastic!!

Any lime in the concrete? Or wherever the pipe was.

Just had to replace all the copper pipes in my roof due to leaks, plumber had to do 3 other premises recently, suspected that it was to do with the greater use of desalinated water.

Considering I found the pipes corroding and leaking in the first place, Both HW and cold water pipes were weaping.

I don't have a problem with the plumber replacing them before they leak further and collapse the ceiligs.

finsup said..
Any lime in the concrete? Or wherever the pipe was.

Wasn't in concrete, under it. The pipes had been laid before the garage floor was poured over it. So probably about 10-20cm of dry sand between pipe an floor. And corrosion looked to be on the inside not the outside. It's weird. where the pipe was cut about 50cm out from the concrete it looks normal thickness. but it just snapped off about 5cm under the concrete, when the plumber went to bend it out of his way. Where it's snapped it's paper thin.
Interestingly what I've read says you'll get blue stains in the sinks if copper is coroding, we have none of that.

decrepit said..
So we had a leak under the garage floor, smart plumbers bypassed it with plastic through the ceiling. Pipe that was under the concrete is paper thin. One of my neighbours at the factory complex, (who's in the mining game,) Said, if the inside was black, it could be SRBs. Flushing the cold water pipes out with chlorine will get rid of them. The plumber says, health risk? He doesn't know anybody that does it, but it could be possible, there's somebody out there that provides the service, with health dept approval.
Any clues anybody?

Never hurts to dose with chlorine, we were on bore water as kids and the council used to get a lot of complaints about the chlorine stink, treatment plants use all the time, mainly of disinfection.
You need a fair bit of contact time to remove sludge though, here's a good write up, plumbingperspective.com/keeping-a-plumbing-system-free-of-microorganisms

Give me a yell if you like. 0433925778
Unlikely bacteria caused it but if you cut the problem area of pipe open it will provide a bit of a story. Even a section nearby.

Have you got good drinking water filter? Iam worry a bit if you drink this blue stuff...not sure if filters filter out metals. Looks like all the missing copper on pipe you may drink out. I use reverse osmosis on my farm. But that for rainwater anyway.
Google also "copper poisoning" if you have any symptoms

decrepit said..
Thanks Macro, but there is no blue stain under any of the taps, so I think it's mainly staying in the pipes. These pipes are 15 years old, so the amount of copper coming through would be extremely small.

the toxic amount is more like 1.5 mg/l
so you are not going to see anything
and keep accumulating in the body over time,
15 years is still quite a new house, pipes should last much longer

You could see clearly a thick blue deposit. This is definitely very soluble stuff the access your water supply

Anyway for cooking and drinking, I use always separate tap with filtered water, the rest like washing and bathing doesn't matter me much

Mandurah water is pretty high in calcium and combined with chlorine in the water can create a hostile environment to copper albeit over time. The colour of the deposits shown look like the salts / deposits left behind.

saltiest1 said..
What is the inner surface like? Smooth or pitted?

Dot made the suggestion of splitting it and opening up, I'll do that tomorrow, and have a closer look.

decrepit said..

Macroscien said.. >>>> Anyway for cooking and drinking, I use always separate tap with filtered water, the rest like washing and bathing doesn't matter me much

We've been thinking of putting a rain water tank in for a while, guess we'll put it a bit higher on the todo list

that is a good choice! $2250 cost me 25,000L delivered!

When I was still lucky enough to live there, my company specialised in finding and fixing these leaks. It certainly kept me busy. Also worked with a water treatment company here in Sydney that looked after mains supplies. The composition of the water there in Mandurah has changed in the last 15 years since both the desal plant and the use of subterranean supplies have been introduced. The latter especially has ramped up calcium. If you want to stop the copper being eaten on mains supply you can instal an ion exchanger that removes calcium (softener). My preference would be rainwater although you'd still be paying water rates despite not using any.