Does this look like lead, connecting to iron? I would have done the scrape test, but all I have are these pictures. Other pictures from this crawl space show lots of lead drain lines, so whoever installed it in the first place was a lead guy. I am guessing the house was built in the mid fifties, early sixties. -Thanks, Joe
No, that looks like galvanized steel. Try a magnet to test it. Comin up from the ground is probably copper, but a possibility is brass. Scrape test that part if you are curious because a magnet won't attach to either.
The problem is all I have are pictures. The grey color, and the "bendiness" look, and the fitting at the top of that line coming up out of the ground are all suspicious. I would scrape-test it if I could. If it were copper, wouldn't at least part of it look coppery? This doesn't look like copper to me but I have been wrong many many MANY times about practically everything you can imagine.
Here is another picture, and I am trying to figure out if that is copper coming up out of the ground, then a sweat fitting, then a dielectric union, then galvanized iron.
I need to plan this work from just the pictures I have, and if that is lead I need to change my plans drastically. A new line from the street is a big deal in my book!
I grew up in the 50's and that looks like galvanized and copper to me. You can see where the copper joint was wiped in the last picture. To be honest, I have never seen lead pipe in a home. Lots of leaded cast iron fittings though. Does lead pipe even have threads???
Maybe planning jobs with photos as your only resource isn't the best plan. It's as bad as bidding over the phone or internet. I will still say the service is copper, but the union isn't dielectric. It just looks like a threaded union.
Phish, lead services were connected by lead wiping to bond it to male threaded fitting. Lead pipe is too soft to thread properly and would distort or crush if attempted to thread into a female fitting. We still have many of them here in Pittsburgh. The inside is coated from years of use and lead doesn't infiltrate the potable water, theoretically.
This is what you should see on a lead water service.
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