How to Know if You Have Lead Service Lines
Identifying sources of lead that could be affecting your home'south drinking water is easier than you think. Photograph: R. Nial Bradshaw via Flickr
Desire to know if you lot might have lead in your home's pipes and faucets?
Experts tell u.s. that "there is no safe level of atomic number 82 exposure." This stuff is just non good for y'all, particularly for developing children and pregnant mothers. The Centers for Disease Control say that fifty-fifty at low levels, lead has been "shown to affect IQ, ability to pay attending, and academic achievement."
In that location are several potential sources of atomic number 82 in your home plumbing that tin can become into your drinking water:
- Service line connecting the water main to your house
- Solder in your plumbing
- Older brass faucets and valves
To really know what's going on, it'southward a good idea to have your h2o tested. You lot can call your drinking water utility or your county wellness department to notice out how to test your water.
One quick flim-flam to see if your water service line might be lead: Scrape it with a screwdriver. If the metallic is soft and turns shiny, it's likely lead. Photo: Randall Whitaker
Your Service Line
The drinking h2o service line coming from the h2o main into your house is ordinarily in the basement.
Or if you don't have a basement, it would be ordinarily the lowest point in the firm—usually in a corner—probably nearest to the route and low to the floor.
- The get-go flim-flam—without even having to touch information technology or do anything—if you meet that the service line is a dark matte gray color, that's usually a expert tip that that is a lead service line.
- Next, scrape the service line with a screwdriver, if it is atomic number 82, the metal would be soft and turn really shiny.
- If your supply line turns a brownish, copper color, that ways it is a copper supply line.
- Aside from lead or copper, you can too take a plastic or galvanized steel service line coming into your house.If it's steel, a magnet would stick to information technology. If it's pb or copper, a magnet would not stick to information technology.
One of import matter to annotation: Fifty-fifty if you lot don't take a lead service line in the basement, that doesn't mean your line is lead gratuitous. Information technology is possible there could've been a partial line replacement, which means part of the line under your yard could still exist lead—even if some of it is copper or steel. Or your city might still take lead service lines in identify from the water principal to the curb. The best thing to do is phone call your city to see what kind of records it has. And you can get your water tested.
How Old Is the Plumbing in Your Abode?
Solder connects pipes in household plumbing.In 1986, the U.S. mandated a lead-free solder for plumbing, so the age of your house and knowledge of when the plumbing was installed can aid you lot.
If your house was built earlier 1986, your plumbing may take pb solder. Scrape the solder to meet if it has that shiny color.
I take an older house. Information technology was built in 1910. The plumbing was updated at some betoken since I have copper lines running throughout the house. The solder that was used to hold the copper joints together probably has some lead in it.
There's no manner to know for sure past doing that scrape test on solder, but it's more likely that the solder used in my home is what'south called "l/50 solder." That's 50 percent lead, 50 percent tin can.
Other types of plumbing you might find in your firm include galvanized steel pipes and plastic h2o pipes. Neither contain lead, but older galvanized steel pipes tin corrode, and these corroded areas can exist places where atomic number 82 leaching from a pb service line tin can gather.
Mark Brush / Michigan Radio
Don't Forget to Check Your Faucets
A lot of faucets and valves in homes have brass in them. Not all of them exercise—some faucets and valves can be made of plastic, steel or ceramic. Just brass is still widely used.
Brass is an alloy made more often than not of copper and zinc. But when they made these faucets and valves from the belatedly 1970s to 2014, the brass could too have upwardly to eight pct lead in it.
Companies added lead to the brass alloy to aid with the manufacturing process and to meliorate the reliability of valves.
On January 4, 2014, all faucets and valves that came into contact with drinking water had to meet a stricter standard mandated by a new law. From that indicate forrad, the standard dropped to 0.25 percent lead immune for "the wetted surface" of brass in drinking water faucets and valves. Manufacturers started adding other elements—similar bismuth, silicon and sulfur—to replace the lead in brass alloys.
The law does not encompass valves and faucets non typically used for drinking h2o, such as valves for showers and toilets.
If You lot Find Lead, What'south Next?
The plumbers and experts I talked to say you take less to worry about if you lot're on a public drinking water supply and the drinking water operator has maintained what they phone call "corrosion command" in the system. When this is done, drinking water pipes and brass faucets and valves can have a blanket of minerals and other deposits on them that proceed the lead from leaching into the system. This is what Flint, Michigan lacked, and it's why the atomic number 82 problem got then bad there.
But fifty-fifty with this coating, atomic number 82 can yet turn up in your drinking h2o. It tin can happen with brass faucets when the water sits unused for longer periods of time.
To actually know what's going on, information technology'due south a skilful thought to have your water tested. You tin can call your drinking h2o utility or your county health section to find out how to examination your h2o.
If you lot suspect you have lead in your plumbing, here are some other precautions you lot can take:
1) Flush the water. This is especially a good idea if you know the water has been sitting in your plumbing for six hours or more. The more than the h2o runs, the less time it has to come into contact with any lead in your plumbing. To flush water from a faucet that might accept lead, let the water run for thirty seconds or so. If you doubtable you have lead solder or a lead service line, flush it until information technology becomes colder.
This is especially a adept idea if you lot know the h2o has been sitting in your plumbing for six hours or more than. The more the water runs, the less time it has to come into contact with whatsoever lead in your plumbing.
Hither's what the Nifty Lakes H2o Authority recommends:
"The amount of time you should run the cold water to affluent your internal plumbing depends on whether you lot have a pb service line, the length of the lead service line and amount of plumbing in your home. Running your common cold water until it feels noticeably colder will indicate the h2o is from exterior your premises' plumbing. In one case that has occurred, flush an additional 1 to ii minutes to ensure y'all are receiving water from the water main and non your service line. Annotation: At i gallon per minute, a ii-minute flush for a 50-human foot service line is the recommended standard."
2) Replacing plumbing components. Replacing faucets is a less expensive proposition than replacing all of your plumbing or your water service line. Simply if you lot're concerned, and water tests testify at that place might be a problem, it'due south worth considering.
iii) Purchase a h2o filter to attach to your faucet where yous go your drinking water. Filters have been shown to be very effective at removing pb. Wait for filters certified to do so. You lot can also consider other water purifying devices such equally reverse osmosis systems.
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This story comes from our partners at Michigan Radio's Surround Report, a program exploring the relationship betwixt the natural world and the everyday lives of people in Michigan. Reporting past Mark Brush and Rebecca Williams. This story was originally published on August 26, 2016.
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Source: https://www.alleghenyfront.org/heres-how-to-tell-if-you-have-lead-pipes-in-your-home/
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