Photo Gallery Series C: Pipe Quality
Many piping failures are easily predicted by the source of the materials used, pipe schedule, piping design, age, building supplied maintenance, and many other facts. Almost every aspect of piping design and construction has navigated toward lower quality and cheaper materials, assembly methods requiring no skill, and above all – cost reduction. The use of ERW seamed pipe would have never been allowed 40 years ago, yet today has become the standard for HVAC and fire protection service.
Our investigations has documented most new pipe manufactured undersized its ASTM specification and the wall thickness stamped on its side, as permitted. Even the threading of thinwall schedule 10 and thinner pipe is now permitted for some piping systems. Add in “value engineering” during the pre-construction process and accelerated system failures become relatively simple to explain.
