Quote:
Originally Posted by Bugsinrugs
In my case the copper piping in my house was developing pin hole leaks because my well water is on the acidic side.
I was thinking about pex but never thought about the rodent perspective.
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This is common with well water and pretty easy to solve. There are systems that add a little baking soda or NaOH to your water to raise the pH enough and put a slight protective scale inside the pipes. Maintain the pH at 7.2 and your copper pipes will last forever.
Flint MI was plumbed 80 years ago with a lot of lead pipe. The well established water treatment made sure that the pH stayed above 7.2 so the pipes developed a protective scale that effectively kept the lead out of the water. Foolish politicians changed the source water for Flint to save money and drastically cut the water treatment staff who knew how to carefully manage the pH, resulting in stripping out the scale and exposing the public to a lot of lead in the drinking water. It was a disaster easily avoided.