old man wanted lead pipes for water line repair

i went to the yard today ,,, had a nice little haul of copper and brass.... on the way there i picked up several lengths of old lead pipe,,someone had called me to pick up some scrap and they were in the lot...well i never sell lead to any of the yards because i get way more through other outlets....anyhow an old man wh i know came up to me and asked if id sell him the pipes.....well i told him what i usually sell lead for and he was ok with the price...

he went on to tell me that his house has lead water lines in it and it was very hard for him to find fittings and extra pipe when he needed it.....i asked him if it was just the drains that were lead, and he said no it was the whole house...i was speechless...i know this man well,,,,i know his family,,,,every one in that family gets alzheimers and parkensons disease...they hAVE also had a few family members die from odd diseases when they were in there 30s



i told him i could not let him have the pipes to use for water lines...he got mad and we had words,,,,i tried to explain to him how it was dangerouse to use the lead pipes for there drinking water..he got irate with me and went plum nutty ....i waited a while and went over to visit him, i offered to change all his water lines to plastic free of charge,,,my dad went with me, the man lost it on us, said he was no charity case and ran us off...

i am a mind my own business kinda guy,,,i live in the country and everyone knows everyone,,,ive never called the law on anyone and ive never reported anything to any type of authority.....this is really bothering me though

this man, his wife,,about 3 or 4 of there kids and 5 or 6 grand kids all live in this old house....i mean i am going to loose sleep over this....i am worried mostly about the kids...my dad and i got ahold of the mans sister and brother,,,they are supposed to come up tomorrow and speak with us about trying to help them....i mean we have all the materials to change it out with,,,i may need a few things but i dont mind running to lowes and spending a few dollars to help out a neighbor....

i just had to get this off my chest,,,i always new that house was old,,,,,all the old timers say it was a pony express depot station....i am starting to believe that now

Just....well, wow. I've never even seen lead pipes for clean water lines. Seen some lead sewer bits and lead roofing fittings but that's about it.

In my opinion, you are doing the right thing.

The only thing that MAY be saving him and his family from acute lead poisoning is the actual chemistry of the water that is in contact with the lead. You've probably seen steel or copper water pipes where the water has actually attacked the pipes and slowly eats away the metal. Other water supplies coat the inside of the pipe with lime and doesn't seem to eat up the pipe.

I'm no expert though, and lead/water may act differently than I have described above. The story would be told by taking a water sample from one of his taps and testing it for lead.

If he is dumb enough not to know about lead poisoning, well, maybe the lead has already got to him. After all, this is exactly what brought down the ancient Roman civilization- lead pipes (and other things made from lead, like cutlery).

Talking to his kids who have children in the house may get you to someone who can understand the seriousness of the situation.

If all else fails, I guess your last resort is to report it to the public health authorities and walk away.

Jon.

I second what Jon said.

He's an older gentleman you said, so he likely views it as charity. Which is why he offered to pay you. Maybe you can make an arrangement for a token amount for switching the lines over. You get to help him an his family out, an he doesn't feel like a charity case. Pride can make otherwise smart folks, act pretty **** stupid. You can quote me on that last line. Hell, I'll likely quote myself..ha ha!

Anyhow, again I second what Jon says. Talk to the kids, try my plan above, if all that fails, do what you need to. I personaly commend you for offering such up. It's a rare thing these days, or so the media would like us to believe.

I wish you much luck my friend, an know somewhere Karma is waiting to deposit a whole lot of good stuff your way. I say again..bravo on offering to help them out by switching everything over to plastic.



Sirscrapalot - With pride, there are many curses. With humility, there come many blessings. - Ezra Taft Benson

yup.
report him to the authorities
explain to them about the Alzheimer bit too- dont want them handling it the wrong way.

and i also agree that u should just settle for a token amt & offer to do it for him
or let him think hes doing it & you will help him-whatever works.

youre doing the right thing here
you will reap the rewards of your action- dont worry.

Tell the kids the money you will make selling the lead pipe will be your pay.

That's a bad situation. There's nothing you can do to help. The damage is done and there's no way of undoing it. Once the lead gets in your system it's pretty hard to get it out.

I was licensed to run a level 2 city municipal water system up until about 10 years ago. In order to keep your license you had to go back to school every year and earn continuing education credits. It didn't seem like it would be worth the investment of time & energy to keep a lic. unless i was using on the job every day so i let it slip.

Point being: I'm a little behind the times.

I do know that it would be unthinkable to use any kind of lead pipe or even lead solder these days. They're even phasing out any kind of brass plumbing fittings or water meters in favor of stainless steel at great cost. ( Brass is alloyed with lead. ) It may be that they're going overboard with "getting the lead out" or it might be worse than most people understand. ~ Just don't know ~

Lead poisoning gives you brain damage. That's probably why the old man is acting like a maniac. You won't be able to reason with him. It will probably be the same with his children. If the grandchildren are over three years old it doesn't look so good because the lead is particularly bad for them. It retards their brain development.

The only way to know for sure in this situation is to have everyone in the family tested for lead poisoning. The blood work will tell the lead levels in their system.

The best way you could help them would be to give the Department of Human Services a call and explain the situation. If the old man is getting crazy with you he's probably even more abusive with his own family. Child protective services would want to know.

Changing the pipes won't help though ...............

Actually, there's still a lot of old lead water pipe in use. This is both in houses and the municipal service lines. I assume if the pipes were an acute risk, cities would be scrambling to change it out. Since, for the most part, they wait for regular infrastructure upgrades to swap the old lead pipes out, the risk must be tolerable. For liability reasons, there must have been testing done to assess the degree of risk. I've talked to a plumber about this recently and he stated the scale that forms on the inside of the pipes protects from the lead getting into the water. Now, all this said, if it were my house and family, I would still get rid of the lead pipes.

While I would prefer not to use lead pipes in my house, my copper pipes were lead soldered. The lead will come out of the house soon enough one way or another. I would not poison the well of good will just because you think there is a problem. How many years (decades?)(centuries?) was lead used to pipe water? Scientists will greatly amplify the dangers associated with whatever pet project they are working on... Eat any eggs lately? they were gonna kill you. Drive your car lately? It was imminent that was going to cause the next ice age. Perspective and moderation leads me to believe many times these dire warnings are not as bad as the "scientists" would have you believe....

All this talk about dangerous elements has got me hankerin' for a shot of scotch...

For Otto:

It doesn't make sense. The municipal water district that i was responsible for was ranked as one of the worst in the state. In fact ... the federal government came in and threatened to shut us down. As far as i know there were only five or six services that had a lead pigtail going from the corporation valve to the curb valve. Aside from that there was no lead pipe in the system.

Are you sure you don't mean galvanized iron pipe ? I've replaced a lot of that over the years because the scale builds up inside and narrows the I.D. of the pipe down to about 1/8". LOL .... the brass / galvanized connections are even worse !

They outlawed galvanized for use in water & fuel piping about twenty years ago because the zinc coating inside was flaking off and causing health problems.

Those two kinds of pipe do look similar.

Originally Posted by t00nces2

While I would prefer not to use lead pipes in my house, my copper pipes were lead soldered. The lead will come out of the house soon enough one way or another. I would not poison the well of good will just because you think there is a problem. How many years (decades?)(centuries?) was lead used to pipe water? Scientists will greatly amplify the dangers associated with whatever pet project they are working on... Eat any eggs lately? they were gonna kill you. Drive your car lately? It was imminent that was going to cause the next ice age. Perspective and moderation leads me to believe many times these dire warnings are not as bad as the "scientists" would have you believe....

All this talk about dangerous elements has got me hankerin' for a shot of scotch...

I dunno ... They're all wet over global warming too. Is there REALLY something there with all of the concern over lead or are they taking it to extremes ?

I got lead poisoning on the job (occupational hazard ). It was due to acute exposure to lead laden dust. Made me sick for a few days and then it cleared up. I would imagine that someone that was exposed to it in their drinking water over a period of ten or fifteen years would run into a lot of health problems. It's a slow poison .............

Lead based solder is an "amalgamate", it does not corrode or introduce itself into the water without a chemical reaction of some kind. If you have a water softener, don't worry about it. That's why its grandfathered, it's not good but it won't hurt you to have lead/tin soldered copper pipe. The danger is not to the water and people who drink it from lead soldered copper pipes it's to the plumbers and maintenance people who do the soldering, the vapors are very very bad, clinically proven to be just as bad as the government thinks it is.

Originally Posted by Scrappah

For Otto:

It doesn't make sense. The municipal water district that i was responsible for was ranked as one of the worst in the state. In fact ... the federal government came in and threatened to shut us down. As far as i know there were only five or six services that had a lead pigtail going from the corporation valve to the curb valve. Aside from that there was no lead pipe in the system.

Are you sure you don't mean galvanized iron pipe ? I've replaced a lot of that over the years because the scale builds up inside and narrows the I.D. of the pipe down to about 1/8". LOL .... the brass / galvanized connections are even worse !

They outlawed galvanized for use in water & fuel piping about twenty years ago because the zinc coating inside was flaking off and causing health problems.

Those two kinds of pipe do look similar.

Lead service pipes were very common in Ontario for houses built before the 1950's. This was probably the case throughout North America. The attached link gives the mitigation strategy for the City of Toronto. There is so much of the stuff out there that replacing it all a once wouldn't be doable (or affordable).

http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2...file-34876.pdf

I wasn't aware of the health risks of galvanized pipe. I always thought they were being phased out because they would corrode from the inside out and fail without warning. I guess it's just one more thing to add to the list of problems associated with old houses. I hate working on them. You never know what you're going to run into.

That does make sense Otto. Two different governments !

Please bear in mind that i'm a little behind the times but our federal EPA was having us test our water for over 100 different contaminants every year. I would imagine that list has been expanded to over 150 by now.

Anyway ... different places ... different building practices.

You know, i remember seeing a lead pipe back when i was a kid in the 60's but i've never actually seen one in use in a house.

The big thing when i was running the water company was daily water testing. We had chemical injection pumps at the pumping station and what we would do is buffer the PH so that the water wasn't aggressive. As the water quality changed we would adjust the rate of injection accordingly and keep it as close to neutral as possible. That way it doesn't react with everything out there.

You know about opinions and all but i don't see lead solder joints,brass fittings, or even galvanized water pipes as being a major concern. Kinda old skool that way.

Don't know about a pipe that was completely made of lead though. That's going from possibly leaching out trace amounts of nasty to something a thousand times more.

Originally Posted by Otto

Lead service pipes were very common in Ontario for houses built before the 1950's. This was probably the case throughout North America. The attached link gives the mitigation strategy for the City of Toronto. There is so much of the stuff out there that replacing it all a once wouldn't be doable (or affordable).

http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2...file-34876.pdf

I wasn't aware of the health risks of galvanized pipe. I always thought they were being phased out because they would corrode from the inside out and fail without warning. I guess it's just one more thing to add to the list of problems associated with old houses. I hate working on them. You never know what you're going to run into.

Finally had a chance to check out the link that you had provided. After reading it all the way through it looks like the government there recognizes that lead in the drinking water is a concern and they're taking steps to address it.

Quote:

Health Canada has established a maximum acceptable concentration (MAC) of lead in
drinking water of 10 ppb (parts per billion) in a free flowing sample
of water.

well we got the situation under control,,,,the mans brother and sister came in today,,,they spoke with him...after they explained that it could hurt the kids, and they thought it may be what caused some of the untimely deaths in the family,,,the old feller finally agreed to let us help him out.........

wow i got my self into a job,,,they have gravity fed water,,,the old sistern that was in the spring was so fragile ,,,i mean all the rocks had turned to sand.....we tried to remove the feed pipe...that was not happening without destroying the holding reservoir ...anyhow we had a friend come over with a back hoe..he just dug the whole thing up....my dad had a 500 gallon plastic tank,,,we used it....

it took about all day but we changed out all the water feeding lines.....it was actually easy after we got the sistern replaced...the house has a full basement....so there was no crawling under an old house........

anyhow all is well, his sister is even going to take all the young kids home with her for a week or too....she is taking them for blood work.....oh by the way im sure everone wants to know how much lead was there.....its impossible to geuse....id say over a ton.....there was over 200 feet of large thick walled pipe leading from the spring to the house.......the man said his dad brought it home from a construction job many years ago......we didnt dig the stuff up...we just dug a new line beside it....id have loved to have it but i was trying to be as un intrusive as i could......

oh and by the way,,,he sent tons of home canned pickles and peppers over also several dozen sweet corn and a ton of tomatoes......i didnt have the heart to tell him we already have so much that im giving the stuff away daily......anyhow long story short all is well up the holler again...and at least i feel better

good job my friend.

A good bit of Karma will becoming to visit you soon I'm sure. Glad it all worked out in the end.

I'd say this is a big win. The lead is just icing on the cake when you cash it in, the real reward here is you helping your fellow man while not asking for anything, and your neighbor being able to have good, healthy water. I'd toast you again but i can't find the darn smiley! An good on him for offering you the canned/jarred goods. An thank you for not turning him down with his offer of the stuff. Some folks just want to pay their way..anyhow they can.

Glad it all worked out an thank you for the update. Some day's I really wonder bout my fellow humans, it's folks like you that let me know there is hope yet for us.

Corny..but true.

Sirscrapalot - Whenever the media starts ranting about how we all suck..remember this post.

Originally Posted by wadarbr549

well we got the situation under control,,,,the mans brother and sister came in today,,,they spoke with him...after they explained that it could hurt the kids, and they thought it may be what caused some of the untimely deaths in the family,,,the old feller finally agreed to let us help him out.........

wow i got my self into a job,,,they have gravity fed water,,,the old sistern that was in the spring was so fragile ,,,i mean all the rocks had turned to sand.....we tried to remove the feed pipe...that was not happening without destroying the holding reservoir ...anyhow we had a friend come over with a back hoe..he just dug the whole thing up....my dad had a 500 gallon plastic tank,,,we used it....

it took about all day but we changed out all the water feeding lines.....it was actually easy after we got the sistern replaced...the house has a full basement....so there was no crawling under an old house........

anyhow all is well, his sister is even going to take all the young kids home with her for a week or too....she is taking them for blood work.....oh by the way im sure everone wants to know how much lead was there.....its impossible to geuse....id say over a ton.....there was over 200 feet of large thick walled pipe leading from the spring to the house.......the man said his dad brought it home from a construction job many years ago......we didnt dig the stuff up...we just dug a new line beside it....id have loved to have it but i was trying to be as un intrusive as i could......

oh and by the way,,,he sent tons of home canned pickles and peppers over also several dozen sweet corn and a ton of tomatoes......i didnt have the heart to tell him we already have so much that im giving the stuff away daily......anyhow long story short all is well up the holler again...and at least i feel better

Not trying to be mean here but you might want to dump those vegetables out, he probably canned them with the lead water.