I encountered two things on an inspection today for which I was looking for confirmation.
The first is the main water service pipe coming from the ground. It’s a hard metal that was curved, painted over several times. I scratched it with my finger to flake off some of the paint. You can also see the pipe fitting in the attached picture. I’ve only seen lead make a bend like this. Could it be anything else?
The second thing I saw was CSST pipe used throughout the home. I didn’t see any electrical bonding on the gas pipe near the meter in the basement (10 ft worth of hard steel pipe from ground to where it converts to CSST. I did however see what appears to be a proper bond in the attic where the end of CSST enters a hard steel manifold, and then splits off into several branches of CSST. There was the aluminum stranded green wire conductor bonded to the steel manifold but I couldn’t confirm where the wire terminated. This one is for my knowledge (I’m already calling for verification by an electrician that it’s bonded correctly): If that green wire terminates appropriately, is this bonding acceptable/adequate? Does it need bonding on the steel pipe by the meter where the pipe exits the ground? The manifold is in the upper left of the second picture: black CSST attached is supply coming from basement, yellow CSST is headed to gas appliances.
That water main is most likely 1 inch type K copper using a flare fitting. Very durable and long-lasting usually this is the fitting they will use underground. The copper comes in a 60 foot or 100 foot roll and it’s quite soft.
Thanks guys. Type K would make sense. I didn’t originally think it was lead but I couldn’t confirm it was something else and that bend worried me when I got back home and saw it again. Figured the fitting would help identify it.
Larry, thanks for that Doc on the CSST bonding. I know there a lot of posts on here talking about CSST and I read everyone of them to learn as much about it as I can. I finally was feeling good about knowing what to look for and how to handle it in reporting, but this one got me because the bonding is in the attic and not near the meter. The doc was really helpful. That max of 75’ for the conductor is in question still and I couldn’t confirm where it terminated so still think it’s best to call it out to CMA, especially since there were a whole host of other electrical issues and unfinished electrical work in this renovated home, so an electrician is coming back to the home anyway.]
