1940’s house with iron domestic water pipes

PC7060

Staying in in a 1940s duplex in Vancouver WA and went in basement to check out heating and plumbing (like we all do 😛). I noted the house still has iron pipes for water service.
Looks original; what’s the functional life space of iron pipe in this application? I’d have thought 50 years would be the limit before corrosions blocked flow.
And yes, I realize most of the pipes in photo are CI drain lines.

mattmia2

That waste is mostly steel, not sure about the fittings but the pipe is steel.

The cold water can stay relatively unobstructed for the better part of a century.

The hot water usually starts becoming a problem around 40-50 years. The heat makes it react faster. Usually the flow is lower but usable but it starts getting pinhole leaks long before it becomes unusable.

It depends a lot on usage and water chemistry. The less fresh water that flows in to it the longer it lasts.

The waste usually starts leaking around 60- 70 years.

EBEBRATT-Ed

The hot and cold water are galvanized. Drains are probably wrought iron (basically the same as steel but with better corrosion resistance. Fittings on the drain are CI drainage fittings.

mattmia2

Most of the steel waste I've run in to is galvanized. Not sure what the alloy under the zinc is.

PC7060

Thanks for the information @mattmia2 / @EBEBRATT-Ed. The workmanship on original iron supply and drains is quite good.

PC7060

Glad I’m not here in winters with gas furnace running. Pretty sure dryer vent isn’t approved for flue gases.

PC7060

mattmia2

I think @EBEBRATT-Ed has a post about this install…

i think that is aluminum flue liner but i don't think you're allowed to use it like that.

mattmia2

i like the co detector sitting on the furnace

Jamie Hall

Not sure about the materials there. The drain lines are almost certainly cast iron, not steel, with malleable or more likely cast fittings. Unlikely that they will give any trouble from rust. The supply lines are most likely to be galvanized steel, since it can be threaded, but could be plain steel. Either way, they will rust. If it's rusted inside enough to impede the flow, or if an unused faucet is opened and a ton of rusty water comes out first, or if the strainers and aerators are clogging on faucets… time for some new pipes.

mattmia2

Whenever I have seen threaded waste like that, and there is a lot of it in michigan because the growth period of michigan was in its heyday, it has been some sort of steel that rusts out and tends to crumble when you try to work with it if it in the part of the system that gets wet.

EBEBRATT-Ed

Not sure that is dryer vent, may be liner which wouldn't be allowed. There probably is some type of flex that is approved.

Gues they couldn't afford an electrician or even straighten out the conduit looks crappy.

mattmia2

My grandparents' last condo that was built in the early 200'0s had about 4' of flex floating in mid air down to the junction box on the furnace. If i remember it had ctss kind of draped down to the furnace and the sheetmetal looked like crap too. I remember opening the door to the utility room and thinking this is a proud day for all of the trades.

When i visited a few years later he said the ac didn't work. I didn't know a lot at that point and i just looked wile walking past or waiting for others, but i was able to unscrew the caps to the service valves by hand so I'm pretty sure the refrigerant escaped because the installer didn't tighten the caps. he seemed kinda confused when i said i thought that was what happened. He was the one that when I was a kid patched the evaporator of their basement fridge that was gouged with a spatula with epoxy putty and charged it with a can tapper and some freon 12 from the auto parts store when i was visiting(without evacuating it but it worked until they moved a decade or so later). Now that i think about it i think he also punched a hole in the can in the process because he was trying to attach the can tapper without retracting the needle. Probably because he was old enough that he couldn't see small things anymore at that point.

PC7060

Saw this is same neighborhood; radiators being repainted during house renovation. Makes a change from the typical throw away jobs.