My house is 40+ years old and has a natural gas hot water heater, stove, and furnace. There are copper pipes running through the attic to connect the furnace to the other two appliances and our a/c repair man recently told us it is unsafe to have copper pipes when using natural gas, based on the fact that additives in the gas will cause the inside of the copper pipe to corrode and flake off. Is this accurate and should I have the pipes replaced, or is he just trying to sell me something I really don't need? Please help!
Hello Balsaxx, There is so much hype regarding natural gas and copper pipes. Just to give you some peace of mind, Many people will say not to connect copper pipes to natural gas, is what they fail to tell you, is that when all houses were built, the original pipe was made from copper, over the years things in the world of construction have changed, they have found new materials to last longer, have found different fluxes applied to the joints on copper pipes to last longer etc etc. I am 100% British, we have houses that are still standing well over 200 years of age, with the addition of gas central heating and modern heating systems. We never use anything but copper for our plumbing, unless the original house was plumbed using lead pipes. I moved to the USA approximately 5 years ago, and am a self employed contractor, we do anything from installing a light fixture to building a dream custom home. Do not get sucked into the false claims that copper will erode and it is a bad thing, Copper is by far the best choice for any plumbing application, and I am positive that when your house was built, the plumbers knew about all the different types of flux. Flux is used to around the joints, to make the soldier run around the joint and create a water tight or gas seal. I have a house that is 140 years old here, all the pipes are copper and the water is supplied from a well, I have a gas furnace and all the pipes are fine, the well water does build up sediment in the pipes, and one of my bathrooms has a shower which is a bit slow, the water pipes/copper pipes connecting the shower is original I.E. 140 years of age. There are too many people hearing horror stories about copper and gas, copper and water etc. You have nothing to worry about, and if you out live your house than maybe consider a change in about 200 years lol. I hope this gives you peace of mind and do not worry. Paul M
OK! Well you certainly got a lot of differing opinions here. To let you know, copper has been used for gas pipe for years. At one time, the smell that is added to natural gas, so you can detect it, had a high concentration of corrosive additives. Thiophane or t-butyl mercaptan is used to add the smell to natural gas, because natural gas is odorless. The high concentrations were causing the copper pipe to flake off inside the pipe, and the flakes were causing stoppages in the small orifices, that are used in appliances. The gas industry has reduced the amount of these additives, so now there isn't a problem anymore. The reason odor additives were introduced into natural gas, stemmed from an explosion in 1937, in Rusk county, Texas. Over 300 students and teachers were killed on a Friday afternoon, when the 1 year old school was leveled when a gas leak, in the crawl space of the building, exploded when a shop teacher turned on an electric saw. It was the New london school. Go online and look at the pictures and read the stories of the few survivors.
