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>It's hard to imagine why the U.S. ever had a single lead water pipe, let alone huge numbers of them. I always supposed that that's where the word 'plumber' ca
by sdk77 11y ago
>It's hard to imagine why the U.S. ever had a single lead water pipe, let alone huge numbers of them.
I always supposed that that's where the word 'plumber' came from, or 'loodgieter' (lead caster, Dutch). Both words strongly refer to lead. Growing up in Holland in the early 80's our house had lead pipes. When I bought my first house in 2003 it too still had a lead water main. I drank a lot of that water, tap water over here has the same purity (basically actually is the same) as mineral water, with no side effects.
- tarsinge 11y agoJust noticed that in french lead is "plomb" and plumber is "plombier"
- rangibaby 11y agoThat's from Latin, which is why the periodic table symbol for lead is Pb.
- crottypeter 11y agoWhether or not the lead gets dissolved in the water depends on the water itself. If you have hard water lead pipes are low risk.
- gozur88 11y agoYes. Lead pipes in Flint weren't a problem until the city switched from Detroit municipal water to the corrosive Flint river water.