hurk27
Senior Member
- Location
- Portage, Indiana NEC: 2008
Can galvanized pipe be used for natural gas lines
Can galvanized pipe be used for natural gas lines
Well this is kind of off topic from the original post but since the question has come up I did a little searching on the subject as I too have always heard that galvanized piping should not be used for natural gas.
What I found is this comes from the days that electro plating was not yet known or used yet for piping and iron or steel pipe was hot dipped to apply the zinc coating, this cause a problem as the zinc coating would flake off and cause problems in the regulator and or orifices plugging and with the regulators could be dangerous as they could send to high pressures to appliances.
So in basic form this is a hear say carried over from days of old that has just never died because no one has ever researched it or if they did it was not published very well, very similar to many myths that seem to keep getting told about electrical issues that never or no longer apply anymore.
And I'm as guilty as any as in the post I made earlier.
so basically with the newer methods of applying the zinc plating by electro plating it is no longer a problem using galvanize iron or steel pipe for gas, but if you happen to have any old hot dipped piping around then no don't use it, it is easy to tell the difference because hot dipped has a very rough finish and the plating is very flaky and can be scrapped off as it doesn't adhere very well in some cases, in no case could I find any newer codes that disallow the use of galvanize pipe for gas.
Here is a quote from a PDF from one such gas company and in many cases it is word for word in many adopted codes that I have found across the Internet for the material allowed to be used for gas lines:
Funny thing is here copper was being used for a while but it was manufactured for gas as the pipe was marked from the factory "NATURAL GAS" in yellow it's entire length.
So I hope this helps puts this to rest as I learned something new that I just never thought about before, kind of like the myth of taping wire nuts was because the old ones didn't have the metal springs in them but old timers kept requiring us to do it.
Can galvanized pipe be used for natural gas lines
Well this is kind of off topic from the original post but since the question has come up I did a little searching on the subject as I too have always heard that galvanized piping should not be used for natural gas.
What I found is this comes from the days that electro plating was not yet known or used yet for piping and iron or steel pipe was hot dipped to apply the zinc coating, this cause a problem as the zinc coating would flake off and cause problems in the regulator and or orifices plugging and with the regulators could be dangerous as they could send to high pressures to appliances.
So in basic form this is a hear say carried over from days of old that has just never died because no one has ever researched it or if they did it was not published very well, very similar to many myths that seem to keep getting told about electrical issues that never or no longer apply anymore.
And I'm as guilty as any as in the post I made earlier.
so basically with the newer methods of applying the zinc plating by electro plating it is no longer a problem using galvanize iron or steel pipe for gas, but if you happen to have any old hot dipped piping around then no don't use it, it is easy to tell the difference because hot dipped has a very rough finish and the plating is very flaky and can be scrapped off as it doesn't adhere very well in some cases, in no case could I find any newer codes that disallow the use of galvanize pipe for gas.
Here is a quote from a PDF from one such gas company and in many cases it is word for word in many adopted codes that I have found across the Internet for the material allowed to be used for gas lines:
From this: PDF page 29
Funny thing is here copper was being used for a while but it was manufactured for gas as the pipe was marked from the factory "NATURAL GAS" in yellow it's entire length.
So I hope this helps puts this to rest as I learned something new that I just never thought about before, kind of like the myth of taping wire nuts was because the old ones didn't have the metal springs in them but old timers kept requiring us to do it.
