why 60-40 solder?

Ah, but thats not how the world thinks these days.. Especailly in America. People want new stuff all the time. Look at cell phones and TVs. I hear in parts of the country people throw away perfectly good CRT TVs because they are not thin and flat!?!? I wish I could get my hands on a nice 32-36" CRT TV that someone is upgrading. I don't like these new display types because they are almost all Wide screen and therefore distort the picture or have huge bars on each side of the screen. The picture quality increase of HDTV is neglible from a sutiable viewing distance unless of course you are using it as a computer monitor.

Mike

Well there is lead solder in my house and I drink the water. No lead poisoning yet..

Mike

Agree about HD quality. In any case, it's only as good as the source, and my cable system introduces some pretty serious artifacts and noise into the analog line. Digital might be better if I had it. IMO, everyday HD, when I've seen it, has been distinctly underwhelming. I've seen some HD monitors, connected directly to the source--which were almost stunning.

Check your local Craigslist for CRT monitors and TV's. I see them every day...especially the big ones. Take along a couple of friends if you find one, however. They are HEAVY!

jak

How can you tell? FWIW, I think the ban on lead in plumbing makes a lot of sense. Still, I'd think that there is very little--if any--lead in actual contact with the water in a properly sweated joint.

jak

Nor does the lead dissolve in water - lead pipes were in use for hundreds of years. Of course it may depend on the type of water. Hard water coats the insides of the pipes.

Actually, it's been posited that the use of lead plumbing was one of the causes of the decline of the Roman Empire. That's just a story I've heard, and upon what I based my opinion. The truth of it, and the chemical reaction involved is beyond my experience.

jak

Look up lead solubility in water and you will find some interesting papers. The type of chlorination has a big effect on the solubility of lead. There are other factors about what is in the pipes and water. Your best hope is that the scale stays Pb++ and that the lead get covered.

Lead from the pipes showed up as a problem for the Romans.

On a recent trip to Vegas, I called into the Sony shop in Caesar's mall, to have a look at the latest offerings and see if they were any different your side of the pond. There was a huge - 42 maybe even bigger - LCD screen running HD from a Blu Ray DVD player, and for the very first time with any flat screen that I've seen, I have to say that it was absolutely stunning. It was like looking at the very best quality cinema display. It was actually showing a clip from Pirates 3. But the problem is that whilst these digitally created and displayed pictures are lovely at native resolution, when you try to watch 'normal' broadcast TV on them, they look perfectly dreadful. I don't know about over there, but here, at the moment, there is little 'broadcast' HD, so if you want to see such a TV working at its best, then it's got to be, for the most part, from an HD video source. For mainly this reason, I am currently sticking with my 34" CRT Tosh, which gives a pretty much faultless display on any content. I am looking forward to SED screens becoming commercially available, as I have read that these give the best of both worlds, with an extremely 'CRT-like' picture.

Arfa

Many old houses over here still have lead pipework feeding them with water. Certainly, the house that I lived in and drank the water in for many years as a kid, had lead pipes. Leaded solder was banned here some years ago for 'open' pipework systems, but as far as I know, there was no such restriction for 'closed' systems such as central heating. Lead is not soluble in water anyway, so I see no reason that water passing through lead pipes, let alone just moving past leaded solder joints, should become contaminated. I have a friend who is a plumber, and he told me that it is very much harder to get a guaranteed good joint first time, with lead-free solder, due to the very odd melting and re-solidifying characteristics that it has.

Arfa

Absolutely correct. You can actually legally rework a lead-free board using standard leaded solder, if the item was placed on the market before July

Arfa

It is a good thing that lead was removed from pipes being that I have experienced lead soldered joints (Poss not sweated properly too) dissolving and leaking and usually in easy inaccessible places, I have also experienced lead soldered copper pipes in refrigerators where the solder has totally "Dissolved" to just a paste (It were used in older refrigerators to act as a heat exchanger for the gas to and from the evaporator to improve efficiency) so I am sure it can and often does leak into the water system. That as well as the availability of cheaper higher temp brazing equipment and cheaper silver solder (Often without flux required) available providing better and more permanent joints is a better and safer alternative. Justy

"Arfa Daily" wrote in news:x8Luj.2093$ snipped-for-privacy@newsfe1-win.ntli.net:

....

Some other interesting info in the above cited article.

It wasn't lead pipes, it was 'Lead Acetate', a toxic sweetener made from lead:

Wasn't there also a problem with lead-based face makeup both in Rome and also until modern times?

Michael

What about lead water pipes?

I've seen an ad from the '20s, from the Lead Institute (or something like that), proclaiming how wonderful it was that the Roman Empire distributed water through lead pipes!

Location:Netherlandds. Until last year I had a lead pipe between the street main feed and my water meter(copper pipe inside). When the pipe was replaced, there was 1.5 mm deposit inside the old pipe, and no possible access to the lead pipe. But of course we do not chlorinate our water supply, and the water is always moderately hard(and very tasty). So we can safely drink it without gagging, and without lead and chlorine poisoning.

I replaced some lead pipe in my parent's house some time ago - it is in a very soft water area. Out of curiosity I sectioned it and looked at it carefully. The original tooling marks - presumably where the pipe was formed by forcing through a die - was still clear and defined. In other words no signs of erosion in over 100 years.

As we'd probably expect, Dave ... ;-)

Arfa

before chlorination or fluoridation, lead from pipe was insignifant as the lead doesn't dissolve in pH neutral water. Probably get more from the brass in the hot water fittings and faucets.

However, if the pH is acidic, you have a serious problem. I just had to put in a $250k pH control system in a tiny (80 customers) water system I run to raise the pH to slightly alkaline (about 8).

Steve.