Originally Posted by
Terry Beck
Does the term "water service" refer also to a main domestic water supply pipe to house?
Yes. That is the same line.
If it does, then I would still have a hard time understanding why PVC is good enough for main water service (supply) to the house, but not domestic cold water distribution within the house.
Because the water service is "outside" the house, what I tried explaining in my previous post.
Here is an example of why.
In the house we had down in South Florida, we noticed our water bills going up. I looked all over for signs of leakage and could not find any.
I looked at the flow indicator on the water meter and it did not indicate any flow (leakage) when we were not using any water. I checked this flow indicator several times of a period of of a few months as the water usage kept rising.
I finally saw the flow indicator move ... then stop ... and did not move again. I saw this happen a few times, but the flow indicator would not keep moving, meaning an intermittent leak somewhere, but not enough flow for long enough for me to find it -Great! I thought, knowing that water was going 'somewhere', just had no idea of 'where'.
About that time we bought a pop-up camper (which means it was around 1998-99) and as I was making a place for it next to the house, I noticed some wetness on the ground at the bottom of the fence between our house and out neighbors house, and thought, oh, their sprinkler system must be leaking. A few weeks later when I was putting the camper back in there I noticed the wet spot again (it had dried out) and this time it was wetter and the sprinklers had not been on - so my mind went Leak! In the water service line!
I dug down to it and found that the PVC water service line had cracked, repaired it, and all was well after that.
EXCEPT ... that in the mean time 10,000-15,000 gallons of water had leaked into that area.
I would not have wanted a 10,000-15,000 gallon leak "in" the house.
PVC is not the same pipe as CPVC, it (CPVC) is more resistant to pressure, more resistant to heat, and more resistant to breaking and cracking. Thus, CPVC is allowed "in" the house and PVC is only allowed "outside" the house.
How much better is CPVC? They use CPVC for fire sprinkler systems throughout dwelling units. Those CPVC systems are tested to 200 psi for 2 hours minimum (usually left at 200 psi for a day or two). No way PVC would survive that.