Is my mains water really copper piping ?

[meakinsl]

Speaking to some neighbours who have all done house renovations the pipes to their houses were all lead and as part of re-furbs they swapped to plastic from stop cock to the house. All the houses were built at different times, we are in Swansea, some of the houses were 1930's think ours is around 1950's. Got me a bit worried as we have young children. The house had new block paving drive and side extension 10 years ago by previous owners and just assumed they would have done it then. Thought would start at the stop cock outside the house, as usual was full to the top with soil and took couple of hours to get down to pipes, sprayed water in there to help loosen it up so water in picture is me rather than a leak.

The road/mains side comes into the stopcock from the right of the picture and is definitely copper as scratched it and can see it, unfortunately the pipe that comes out the other side is straight into cement and is the pipe that lease to hose. Could it be lead on the other side of that joint ?

Road stop cock :


It first appears in the house coming out of a tile floor at front of house which is pretty much straight opposite the road stop cock 10m away, it is also copper as can see some green discolouration, picture below of house stop cock :



What do people think is it likely to be copper between ? Guess there is no easy way to tell, wasn't expecting copper to be an option, assumed would be the blue plastic or lead - is it common for it to be copper ?

Was going to get water company round who apparently test water for free as my next door neighbour but one has 20m lead pipe that pops up in his kitchen and the water company tested it and said was within acceptable limits.

Any help /advice greatly appreciated.

[Rorschach]

Scrape the side carefully with a sharp knife, that will tell you what material it is.

[arco_iris]

I'm refurbishing a 1953 bungalow in West Wales and it has copper both sides of the meter which was installed only a few years ago by Dwr Cymru in the back garden. As I was digging up the original sewer from there towards the road, down the side of the property & the water main runs alongside it, I found that it was 1/2" copper all the way to the pavement.

So quite likely yours is indeed copper. Maybe they'd stopped using lead by the time your house was built.

[Rorschach]

I'm refurbishing a 1953 bungalow in West Wales and it has copper both sides of the meter which was installed only a few years ago by Dwr Cymru in the back garden. As I was digging up the original sewer from there towards the road, down the side of the property & the water main runs alongside it, I found that it was 1/2" copper all the way to the pavement.

So quite likely yours is indeed copper. Maybe they'd stopped using lead by the time your house was built.

The street my mother lives on was built the same time, mid 50's. All the houses have/had lead mains. Houses nearby built in the 50's and 60's also all had lead mains.