copper pipe straps

can I use regular screws with copper pipe straps, or do they need to be brass screws?

any screw is OK

AFAIK you can use any screw. I have often wondered why; I don't know how the dielectric problem gets 'disappeared' after a copper strap is put around a copper pipe, but that is all I have ever seen.

david

I actually got dinged for this

Our local inspector actually said steel was unnaceptable. ut when I pointed out that other previously hung pipe used steel screws, he said he'd "let it pass".

I think he was just trying to set a tone with a homeowner (me) to watch it.

You can buy copper nails for these...

Zimme

You had an experience with a "Barney Fife Plumbing Inspector"

when you state the obvious to them and they say

"this time I will let it pass"

that tells you that you caught them... acting like big shots

and not expecting to be held accoutable...


we had a "barney" fighting us over about the same thing....

wanted us to go back out to 15 houses and change the

galvanized nails in all the brass "wing ells" and faucets for all the fixtures

to brass screws... he claimed that galvanic action would eat the

galvanized nails away in 25 years or so....

we stated they would last 50 years.....


he went away too....saying about the same thing.

I was just planning on using course thread drywall screws for the straps and ells. would these be ok?

^thats what I do..

Hope it works... I've done it a zillion times....

I use tube talons in both sizes. But, as I'm a stark opponent of plastic, I'm getting leary of using them because in all of these new homes.....the tube talons are snapping off of the lines they are holding.


The constant temperature variances makes the plastic brittle. Too often I come into a home and see where half of the lines as hanging down as a result. Also, if the joists are uneven along the bottoms, those tube talons have a nail's length of adjustment and most bang them to the joist which pulls the piping upwards, putting strain on the talon. Easy to use though I'll admit. Those plastic j-hooks are great as well, haven't seen them break as much as the tube talons.

I use those copper J-hooks but those are clad, not true copper, otherwise they'd bend over in hard wood instantly.

I'm switching to those pipe hooks they use for gas lines with the rubber dipped on them.

I'll just go to HD and get a tennis ball can of "rubberize-it" rubber and do them myself. A great deal cheaper that way.


If you all are speaking of the two hole strap, I never use them and the copper clad is always so thin that you'll start seeing corrosion where the strap is in contact with the pipe.