Hi all,

I’ve noticed some kinks in the copper water pipes in my home.



Do I need to fix these or leave it alone?

Pictures: [imgur.com]

Thanks.



Edited 1 times.

i can't see any printing on the pipes.
if the printing is blue colored then it is thicker pipe and stands a better chance of not causing a problem than if the pipes are printed with red which is a thinner wall tubing.

There are information on the pipes in blue.

Image: [imgur.com]

Much depends on the speed of the water going through the piping. IF the water pipe is sized larger than required by code the speed of the water most likely will be slow and the kink might not matter that much.

blue lettering is good. that is the thicker copper tubing.

none of us has a crystal ball but i wouldn't worry about the kinks for 15 to 20 years. maybe more..

From the picture the copper pipe marking says made in Australia. Is the type L blue type M red marking a USA thing or worldwide?

The manufacturer Kembla, makes tubing for different markets. The one shown in the photo is 15mm x .7mm wall certified to British/Europeon standards. That is similar to Type M. Kembla also makes tubing for US, Australian and New Zealand standards.

Steve, interesting thanks for the clarification.

If this is type M, and made a 90 bend, does it mean they made soft copper tubing in type M? I have only seen soft copper in type L. Could this be a hard copper tubing made to bend being the reason for the crease?

i have never seen thin wall copper with blue lettering.
i don't worry so much about the kink, i worry about the outside diameter of the thin wall tubing. it stretches in the bending process and becomes even thinner.
i'm a plumber, not an engineer.
so i'm backing out of this posting and saying i don't know..

sorry

The British standards tubing they make comes in half-hard and hard drawn tempers. Under the British standards, there's blue and green id markings, with green being a thicker walled tubing.

Sum, that has to be hard drawn tubing because the two branches are perfectly straight. I have only seen soft tubing come in coils and they can never be completely straightened out.

I see necking (reduction in diameter) at the bend and that is concerning. I have not had soft tubing neck like that upon bending.

This might be the "half hard" (HH) version. The Australian and New Zealand versions have a "bendable quality" (BQ) and hard drawn straight lengths and annealed coils.

[www.kembla.com]

George, I noticed the reduction in the bent elbow too. I wonder why that happened also what caused the middle crease/kink. Could an oversized pipe bender be the problem?

Steve I never heard of this half hard/soft tubing. Very interesting.

I would attribute the kink to the half hardness and therefore not fully soft.