Brass fittings on RO?

[Rudy]

A piece of a Schedule 80 plastic fitting broke on my RO machine. There was a bunch of glued fittings....so my only way to get up and running quickly.....was to replumb using brass fittings.

A LOT of plastic was removed and totally replaced with brass tees, barbs, reducers etc.

What effect will the RO water have on the brass fittings?

Any harm having brass instead of plastic?

 

[H20man]

Corrosion over time.

 

[Greg Pack]

The brass will slowly be eaten away, but it will take years

 

[I.B. Washincars]

The brass will slowly be eaten away, but it will take years

What Greg said, nothing to worry about.

 

[MEP001]

Ditto, erosion from water flow has a much greater effect on brass than RO water itself. From what I've read by chemists in the field of water purification, the reason they use glass or plastic instead of stainless steel is that ultra-purified water is easily contaminated. It's not corrosive and doesn't attack the metal, it just takes contact with it to become not ultra-pure. I've pulled a 3/4" tee out of an RO tank that was used as a weight on the switch for 20 years, and there's barely more "corrosion" on it than the brass in the same room in open air.

 

[Greg Pack]

I've got one wash built around 1999 where they actually plumbed RO from the SFR tank to the IBA SFR pump with copper. Its non pressurized and it has spontaneously developed pinhole leaks in a couple of spots.

 

[mjwalsh]

Some plastic fittings & parts are better than others when it comes to general durability. General durability would of course include setting up for or re-doing RO-SFR. Not sure if it has more to do with quality control than specific material since I have ... albeit rare... experienced a brand new brass cast fitting with a pin hole at least once.

 

[water guy]

Never ever have I seen corrosion unless it was galvanic corrosion from Dissimilar metals. That was from a galvanize nipple coming out of a Softener.

 

[MEP001]

That's more likely normal corrosion of a cast iron fitting, since that's a dielectric union.

 

[water guy]

It was not Cast Iron it was a galvanize nipple coming of dielectric union. Which should of been all brass fittings and pipe.

 

[MEP001]

It was not Cast Iron it was a galvanize nipple coming of dielectric union. Which should of been all brass fittings and pipe.

It's galvanized cast iron, and yes should definitely have been all copper or brass, or at least PVC.