A rare look at wood sewer pipe

Basement_Lurker

Basement_Lurker

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I took a pic of one of the few old wooden sewer/storm drain pipes still in use today....anywhere! Perhaps some of you will find it as interesting as I do...perhaps not. I saw a display of this stuff when I did a tour of the water services system for my city, but it was very interesting to actually see one still installed.
 

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My God! That is a rarity for sure. When I was a kid, like 65 or so years ago, we had wood stave irrigation pipes in our orchard. The system was all gravity feed, so the pressure was not very high, but we still had leaks. I got pretty good at making a cardboard collar and mixing cement in a wheelbarrow to patch the old thing up. It had been in the ground at that time at least 40 years, maybe a bit more. Thanks for sharing the picture.
 
Some of the towns in MA still have wooden water pipes, and then they wonder why they have so many leaks...just like upgrading the electrical and gas distribution systems, nobody wants to pay until there's a major failure or accident. 'Little' leaks...who cares?!
 
This section of pipe was just a few feet away from an old storm drain discharge that feeds into the ocean by my home. Actually, for a long time, my city had a dirty little secret where some of its sewer discharge ended up on the beaches around Seattle....perhaps the next time i install a caroma, I should flush a message in a bottle and see if Terry gets it......
 

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In Lafayette Indiana there is still some original wood water main pipe still in use. Carrying about 60 LBS of pressure. I have never seen it but only heard about it. Also under Lafayette runs the underground aquifer called the teays river. I have heard people tell there are buildings with basements that have doors that open up right into it. The best story was about a building that used to house a ice cream plant.
 
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Call me old fashioned, but I prefer lead pipes. None of that fancy new wood stuff. Good ol' lead like the Romans used to use. It never did them any harm.

And it gave plumbers their name.
 
quote; None of that fancy new wood stuff.

And definitely not those come lately things like cast iron, steel, brass, or copper. We won't use those until they have been time tested for a few centuries.
 
Ian Gills said:
Call me old fashioned, but I prefer lead pipes. None of that fancy new wood stuff. Good ol' lead like the Romans used to use. It never did them any harm.

And it gave plumbers their name.
Click to expand...

Plumbarium. Go to Pompeii and you can see the ORIGINAL DWV [ not much venting] with the valves still intact. And the supply lines, still ready to be used again. Lead is forever, and I used it for all the flashing on my house - also it makes great door sweeps as mice do not like to chew into it.

If you are in a very old house out east its still fairly likely the street service is lead to the meter. I would be careful not to make cofee with that first morning flush of water, less you end up thinking like Caligula.
 
quote; I would be careful not to make cofee with that first morning flush of water, less you end up thinking like Caligula

Now, you are thinking like Ralph Nader. When I left the Chicago area in 1968, we were still using lead main lines to the meters, and I did NOT end up thinking like Caligula. Perhaps, given the increase in violence in the country, MAYBE the problem is that the substitutes for lead are affecting people's brains. After lead pipe is installed, it almost instantly gets a brown patina inside it which keeps the water from contacting the lead, just LIKE solder joints do on the inside of copper lines.
 
So if I wanted to attach new lead supply lines for a kitchen sink to an old wooden one, what would one use?
 
hj said:
quote; I would be careful not to make cofee with that first morning flush of water, less you end up thinking like Caligula

Now, you are thinking like Ralph Nader. When I left the Chicago area in 1968, we were still using lead main lines to the meters, and I did NOT end up thinking like Caligula. Perhaps, given the increase in violence in the country, MAYBE the problem is that the substitutes for lead are affecting people's brains. After lead pipe is installed, it almost instantly gets a brown patina inside it which keeps the water from contacting the lead, just LIKE solder joints do on the inside of copper lines.
Click to expand...

Thats very interesting. I think the reason the Romans were affected by the lead is because they used them as drinking vessels
 
hj said:
quote; I would be careful not to make cofee with that first morning flush of water, less you end up thinking like Caligula

Now, you are thinking like Ralph Nader. When I left the Chicago area in 1968, we were still using lead main lines to the meters, and I did NOT end up thinking like Caligula. Perhaps, given the increase in violence in the country, MAYBE the problem is that the substitutes for lead are affecting people's brains. After lead pipe is installed, it almost instantly gets a brown patina inside it which keeps the water from contacting the lead, just LIKE solder joints do on the inside of copper lines.
Click to expand...

You were probably lucky enough to have peed first and flushed the toilet before you made coffee.

All that violence on the south side of Chicago is because those guys drink coolaid for breakfast and pee outside.

That patina is lead oxide and it sluffs off a few micrograms each day, apparently even with some calcium deposits.

You can look at the testing of lead content of that first pipeline full of water from many studies, and its very high. We can take a lot of lead after childhood without too ill effects.

I would drive a corvair, but not feed my kid from a meter feed lead pipe. Had an Uncle in Slovakia that worked lead mines and battery factories. Took him 20 years to die in a way that no horror film could bring to life.
 
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