It’s been months since this has been changed but I just thought about the fact that the pipe we connected to had been painted before.
Is this white paint leaching into our water?
Any way to tell?
Plumbing – Paint on copper pipe leaching into the water supply
plumbingwater
Related Solutions
As Ryan said you can solder it (either with soft solder or silver solder use flux will make your life easier to) or you can just use a rubber repair on it either buying a propritory type or just making it your self out of a piece of rubber and a couple of hose clamps.
This is a plumb-quik from Fernco
Keep in mind that you don't have to use the whole thing you can cut it open so it is easy to slide over the pipe and put the cut at the top of the copper pipe then put your hose clamps on and tighten it up . I've used this technique to repair a 6" stormwater pipe that was cracked and was a pressurized pipe with no problem.
Another easy way is to use Ferropre or similar a two part epoxy that sets like a rock and sticks to pretty much anything
If you are going to use Ferropre put on disposable gloves, get a bucket of water and mix the two parts together in the water it makes it much easier to handle as it doesn't stick to your gloves as much then once mixed just smear it over the holes in the pipe.
To raise the float level without adding any additional points of failure, just move the whole pump up - shorten the pipe, put concrete blocks under the pump to raise it in the pit. Your power bill will thank you.
You could try putting a strong dye [food coloring or fabric dye can work, but "septic dye" is probably the most effective] in the water, though it may be hard to tell what's happening with that - I have to suspect that you may be pumping in circles (outlet insufficiently far from the house, so the "discharged' water shows up in the pit a few minutes later) but that will be tricky to trace with dye. If all the water is "new" the dye should just get progressively paler, and the water coming in the drainage pipes should be clear, not tinted. You can also look for dye coming out into places away from the house.
A more complicated approach that might work would be to mix up or buy a strong dye solution and use a tube to "inject" it very near the pump intake as the pump is pumping (trying to minimize what gets in the sump itself) and then you might see the sump get darker if it's recirculating.
It sounds like the water may be passing in from one or more of your pipes and out again from one or more of your pipes (when the pump is not powered up) - a little bit of dye squirted near each pipe in turn (with the pump off) may diagnose this and show if there is "flow-though."
Related Topic
- Plumbing – Hot water pipe sticking up in back yard
- Water – Powervent Water Heater Has Cold Air coming into Vent
- Water – Unidentified pipe and smelly water trickling under slab into basement floor drain
- Plumbing – New toilet already clogging
- Plumbing – Installing a water filter on a sink with copper supply lines
Best Answer
The Water is inside the pipe. The fitting you have on the left side connected to the painted pipe should be making a tight leak proof seal there should not be any paint at the point of inner seal. If you are concerned - remove the connection and sand the paint clean it and remove it then reconnect your fitting.
If the paint is lead based - you can try a lead test. Be forewarned that what is coming from your utility will probably be more than what you have from that paint area if anything at all.
Paint is not leaching from the outside of the copper to the inside of the pipe either.
Just thought I would add this picture to help you - see the insert sleeve that fits on the inside of the pipe - the white nylon piece. This seals the inside from the outside.