> I asked the crew "why copper?" and the best answer was that it was easy
> to locate. Plastic doesn't conduct electricity, although I understand
> that there is some plastic available which has a trace wire in it. The
> fact that they were running copper was good enough for me.
Around here our soil is acidic enough that you're not allowed to put
metal pipe in the ground (unless it's completely jacketed in something
else, as our old gas pipe apparently is.)
When looking at some of the old cast-iron drain pipe, the parts that are
completely buried were fine, but the pieces that come through or lay on
the soil in the crawlspace (where we used to have some standing water
from time to time) were corroded to the point of crumbling.
We were required to bury a tracer tape above the PVC water pipe, they
did not require one with metal in it but they are available (somewhere...)
John.
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