John,

On Sun, 23 Mar 2008 21:45:50 -0300, John Coppens wrote:

>...
> Chlorinated water
> can harden the plastics and make them very brittle though. Had a
> (ex-flexible) overflow tube harden completely and break off.

Is that what causes it?  I had a drinking-water tap, fed from the "hard" side of the water softener, and then through a filter, that had 1/4" nylon flexible pipe 
feeding it.  One day I heard a hissing sound, and found that there was a crack in this pipe, spraying water across the kitchen.  On trying to fix it, I found the pipe 
was incredibly brittle - it hadn't been when I installed it, about 15 years ago - and broke whenever I tried to do anything with it.  I eventually found somewhere 
that would sell me a piece of that size plastic pipe, but it was hard work - usually it comes bundled with the tap itself (with a "vampire" connection at the far end).

I'd been wondering why it became so brittle - Chlorine could well be the cuplrit, then!

Cheers,


Howard Winter
St.Albans, England


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