Kingston: My Copper Pipes Keep Getting Pinhole Leaks

Why this happens in Kingston

In Kingston we check age before anything else, because a driveway that keeps settling in one spot is how it shows up here. Copper from the 1960s and 70s has been in service for half a century, and thin spots fail first. Hardpan saturated from November to May makes the signs misleading, so we confirm rather than assume.

Next: water chemistry. Slightly aggressive water dissolves copper from the inside over decades. With beach deposits along the cove under ferry-town lots near Highway 104, the symptoms can look identical to the first cause, which is why the meter test and the locate matter.

Don't overlook contact corrosion. Copper against concrete, fill, a steel hanger or a nail plate corrodes at the contact point. On Kingston properties from 1970s-to-1990s acreage with a newer core near the ferry it comes up more than you'd think.

Before you call

We stage pipe on the trailer because the nearest supply house is a long way from the north end.

Do this before anyone digs roots and the odd boulder off Miller Bay Road in Kingston: count the pinhole repairs the house has had and where. Do the meter test to catch the current leak if there is one. It takes minutes and it tells us whether the problem is on long gravel driveways through fir or inside the house.

What happens next

The repair side is whole-house repipe. On wooded acreage along South Kingston Road that means close and document, then tie in and test in outwash near Appletree Cove where the problem actually is, then plan the openings. If what we expose is 1970s polyethylene on acreage at the end of its life, we say so with the pipe in your hand.

From Appletree Cove to Lindvog Road and out around Arness Park, pinhole leaks in copper is a regular Kingston call for us. Up Highway 3 and across on 104, and emergencies on ferry-town lots near Highway 104 dispatch immediately, any hour.