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Pulled a busted pipe out of my wall last night and found the real problem
I was fixing a slow leak under my kitchen sink in Austin and pulled out a corroded copper pipe that looked fine on the outside but was paper-thin inside. Turns out the water softener the previous owner installed was eating through the pipes slowly over 4 years. Has anyone else run into hidden damage from old water treatment gear?
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skyler_fox724mo ago
Four years is a long time for a water softener to be chewing through pipes like that, I mean are you sure it was the softener and not just old pipes anyway? @caseyclark makes a decent point about checking the settings but I've seen plenty of houses in Austin with copper that lasted 20+ years with soft water just fine. Maybe it's just me but I'd get a second opinion before ripping out all your plumbing based on one thin spot.
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caseyclark4mo ago
That sounds like a real headache, especially in Austin with our hard water. I had a similar thing happen at my place last year. A friend of mine who does plumbing told me to always check the water softener settings because if they're cranked up too high, the salt can eat away at copper pipes faster than normal. It's crazy how something meant to help your water can secretly ruin your whole plumbing system over time. I'd bet you're gonna have to check a lot of your other pipes now to see if they're thin too. Glad you caught it before a major flood happened.
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