copper water service corroding
copper water service corroding
(OP)
I've had a contractor friend contact our company about a project that his company completed 18 months ago that has had some problems arise recently.
They completed a water main project and installed all water services. The Village has called him regarding leaks with these services, although they didn't know the reason why.
The contractor went out and dug up the locations of the leaks and found that the copper water services have corroded and are leaking already. Keep in mind this has only been 18 months since project completion.
We're baffled. Does anybody have any ideas what is going on here?
The location is a north suburb in Chicago.
They completed a water main project and installed all water services. The Village has called him regarding leaks with these services, although they didn't know the reason why.
The contractor went out and dug up the locations of the leaks and found that the copper water services have corroded and are leaking already. Keep in mind this has only been 18 months since project completion.
We're baffled. Does anybody have any ideas what is going on here?
The location is a north suburb in Chicago.





RE: copper water service corroding
Where in the piping is the corrosion?
What does the corrosion look like?
Could you post some pictures?
Was this a previous industrial site?
What is the source of the water?
Any other information would be great help.
Having said all of the above I think you should be looking for a Corrosion Specialist/Consultant, ASAP
Still comeback with requested information.
RE: copper water service corroding
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Corrosion, every where, all the time.
Manage it or it will manage you.
http://www.trent-tube.com/contact/Tech_Assist.cfm
RE: copper water service corroding
Accelerated corrosion rates can occur when the fluid velocity is great enough to "wash" away the passive oxide layer.
A general rule of thumb is:
4 ft/sec for copper
9 ft/sec for 90-10 copper nickle
15 ft/sec for 70-30 copper nickle
If the engineer was accustomed to using the higher velocity limits and pressure drop associated with commercial steel pipe then you could have a problem using copper pipe.
RE: copper water service corroding
I do have pictures, but do not know how to post them here, and I do not have a website where I can put them up on. Does anyone know how to post them, or give me an address to send them to for more advice?
RE: copper water service corroding
The following link gives compositions of Milwaukee [TDS = 147 ppm, pH 6.4] & suburban Chicago (DuPage County) water [TDS 664, sulfate 411 ppm, pH 6.2], plus membrane-filtered Milwaukee water for beverage use. The filtered water is lower in both pH (4.6) and TDS (26 ppm), so would readily dissolve copper.
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RE: copper water service corroding
http://www.flickr.com/
http://www.tinypic.com/
RE: copper water service corroding
RE: copper water service corroding
I uploaded them at www.tinypic.com
Search for images CopperCorrosion1 and CopperCorrosion2 and you'll see what I'm talking about in this case.
http://tinypic.com/tags/?tag=CopperCorrosion1
http://tinypic.com/tags/?tag=CopperCorrosion2
Metengr is right, this is Lake Michigan water and should not have any problems with pH. I could see it in some far NW or SW outlying suburbs that have well water, but not in this particular community.
RE: copper water service corroding
http://i1.tinypic.com/s18cpz.jpg
http://i1.tinypic.com/s18dh4.jpg
http://i1.tinypic.com/s18dnq.jpg
http://i1.tinypic.com/s18dtw.jpg
RE: copper water service corroding
Yes, I would double check the actual flow velocity and hte actual pH.
But this looks more serious to me.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Corrosion, every where, all the time.
Manage it or it will manage you.
http://www.trent-tube.com/contact/Tech_Assist.cfm
RE: copper water service corroding