Adventures under the laundry sink

"Don Foreman" wrote ... : After I'd had my first cuppa this morning, Mary informed me that she : had some unpleasant news. I'm never quite sure whether she's tweaking : me or not, which is part of what makes life fun. She wasn't this : time: there was again a leak under the laundry sink. Said leak was : not near the repair site from a few months ago but only a couple of : inches away. : : Awright, so it's time to replace the whole pipe, which entailed moving : a couple of jugs from under the sink. Awright, maybe 30 jugs of : various and sundry chemicals. You know the stuff that accumulates in : a laundry room, right? Bleach, detergent, gallon of hydrochloric : acid, gallon of glacial acetic acid, half a dozen assorted : phosphoric-acid metal treat soups, Birchwood-Casey aluminum blackener, : jug of caustic metal cleaner ... the usual stuff. :

Hydrochloric(aka muriatic) acid could easily be the cause of your plumbing misery. No matter how tight the cap is fumes escape and wreak havoc on metal. There have been numerous cases reported where all the cast iron in a shop was covered by a nice brown coating of rust generated overnight due to the unwitting leaving of a jug of HCl in the shop. Copper will also be attacked and it appears you gave it plenty of time to do it's work. It's best to leave HCl outside in a well vented plastic storage shed. I don't know about the other nasties you have under that sink but I'd err on the side of caution and leave them outside too. Art

Don,

In ordinary circumstances there should never be sparks on a ground wire.

The fact that there was some sparks, is a really strong reason to find out NOW.

Hey Steve, just how often is "always usually" ? :-) ...lew...

more often than hardly never

Please reread and check your reading comprehension regarding your use of the word "those". This suggests a large proportion of other end users, and not necessarily you, who we know such things could not and never have happened to.

Steve

I've had good condition 1 gallon muriatic acid container rust all the steel stuff within feet of them, and this was stored outdoors, on porch with a roof.

It does leave a strange brown/orange coating, unlike normal rusting of steel.

Second that.

Investigate where the leakage is coming from by isolating circuits while measuring the current in that ground wire. Don't give up until you've identified the problem.

Mark Rand RTFM

I measured 30A in a water pipe once with a clamp-on ammeter, and the lineman and I traced it to an open neutral in the weatherhead splice. Got a new free meter box and drop out of it.

jsw

I was moving a propane fired water heater once that was still attached to the gas line (copper) when I got the shock of my life. The propane line was acting as a ground for a mis-grounded electrical system. I'm hugging this thing, standing in some water, and feeling a deadly embrace. Thank God one of us let go of each other.

I don't remember all the details other than I tracked the fault down and fixed it.

Grandpa had a older home with gas lighting (mostly capped). He was cutting out old gas pipe and bridged to a water line. The hacksaw blade pretty near vaporised. He figured out afterwards why his electric bill was erratic. It depended on how wet the ground was. The house that was mostly knob and tube with some romex had the hot side grounded to the wrong pipe(s).

Anyway, sparks in plumbing, something isn't right. Is your neutral from breaker box to pole intact?

Wes

-- "Additionally as a security officer, I carry a gun to protect government officials but my life isn't worth protecting at home in their eyes." Dick Anthony Heller

On Mon, 12 Oct 2009 12:15:57 -0500, the infamous Don Foreman scrawled the following:

Very good.

Holy Shit, Maynard! Track that problem down before it becomes a coffin filler, wot?

-- The best and safest thing is to keep a balance in your life, acknowledge the great powers around us and in us. If you can do that, and live that way, you are really a wise man. -- Euripides

el stuff within feet of them, and this

eel.- Hide quoted text -

Ferrous chloride, not iron oxide(rust). And once you get it, the iron/ steel will continue to rust, even if you clean the surfaces off, chloride contamination at work.

Stan

Stan

My reading comprehension isn't at issue with words I use, and I don't seem to have used that word here.

Glad to know of your recommendation. Let us know if you have any long-term problems. I can certainly see how Shark-bites would be preferable to soldering in a location like under a kitchen sink surrounded by wood. Had a sit like this summer at the cabin but the new faucet came with compression fittings so no soldering was necessary. I strongly dislike compression fittings, but they did seem to work. I turn off the well pump when we're not there.

No.

I'll grab a multimeter and check that out one day real soon.

If you see job ops in engineering, don't give up your day job quite yet.

Heh,heh - what pipes should the hot side be grounded to? (ducking & running)

Joe

On Tue, 13 Oct 2009 00:50:33 -0500, the infamous Don Foreman scrawled the following:

Why do you even talk to a bot who says "hot water heater", Don?

-- The best and safest thing is to keep a balance in your life, acknowledge the great powers around us and in us. If you can do that, and live that way, you are really a wise man. -- Euripides

Thank you, Don, for the calm reply. You are a solid contributor to this and other groups, and know a ton about this stuff. Although you were working with a concrete wall (but you didn't say that first), it sounded like you were recommending it to all. I DO personally know two professionals who know what they are doing inside and out who started large construction fires, and they can do sweating behind their backs. Shit happens to even people who know what they're doing. I do prefer sweating to SharkBites because of the cost and the final result, but there's no contest when it comes to being easy, and something that a novice can SAFELY do. You yourself know that it takes time to learn to sweat properly, that a lot depends on the type of solder they GIVE you and tell you it will work, the gas you use, the barometric pressure, the day of the week, etc, etc, etc, and Murphy's Law takes over from there.

Steve

In Europe, don't they use a small electrical current through plumbing to keep the scale build up down? However, I don't think it should be enough to cause a spark. Sparking doesn't sound right to me, and sends up a red flag.

Steve

A wise policy. Kids have a natural talent for creating destruction. No need to accelerate this process.