I’ve been drinking tap water all my life and I have to wonder: Tap water pipes have a lifespan of 50 years, without any regular cleaning and maintenance. I have to clean my aquarium every week and even after cleaning it I wouldn’t drink from it. I know light and air play it’s role, but still, 50 years? Is the inside of the pipes really staying that clean or is it that the dirt in there doesn’t really bother us?
In: Engineering
Good bacteria clean out water. Just like you’re fish tank, they’d good bacteria that keep it healthy for your fish. Only change their water once a month and only 25%, or fish will be less healthy.
humans forget stuff and turn it into stupid silly things that make us forget why stuff is done, even at the risk of survival.
example: why was there ever a “wishing well”? it seems that at one point in our collective history, a village would have been getting the water from a common well. COPPER and SILVER purify water to some extent. throwing copper and silver pieces into your well would help to clean the water and hopefully boost it on its way to “potable/drinkable”.
sailors, (think giant tall sailing vessels of the 1400’s..) would commonly put silver in the barrels that are for containing the water for the sailors survival in order to help keep it from going to a non-useable state.
so … copper pipes. at least, that was the premise afaik. now that we use oil–> plastic, a lot of places need to put in a water filter, which, mostly, run the water through silver. (ie: [https://www.liquitech.com/products/copper-silver-ionization/](https://www.liquitech.com/products/copper-silver-ionization/) )
copper pipes will oxidize eventually and need to be replaced due to small “pin-sized” holes, about 50 yrs. ….
Most domestic water pipes are made of copper or an alloy of copper. Certain metals like copper, and galvanized steel have inherently antibacterial properties
Its because water is constantly flowing. Its the same reason running streams make for drinking water, and the same force behind water shaping rocks into smooth surfaces.
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