Brass Fittings for Water Heater okay?

[Dreaming]

Recently installed a new water water heater and I used brass pipe fittings in the freshwater plumbing because that's all they had in the nearby hardware store. They did not have the plastic fittings I need.Please see the attached picture.

I'm running brass pipe fittings to reinforced PVC. The previous plumbing used plastic fittings to reinforced pvc. So the questions are:

A) Are the brass fittings non toxic? They said that they were less than 0.25% lead on the wetted surface area and did not have a warning about not being used for potable water.

B) Does anyone see anything wrong with the way I have this thing plumbed? Is the reinforced PVC going to present a problem in regards to temperature?

Thanks!

 

[Tom J]

I found that the plastic fitting on the hot water side allowed the hose to keep sliding off. The clamps couldn't be tightened enough and the fitting would deform. I went to the brass fitting like you have, and no more problem.

 

[Capt jgw]

They generally don't recommend mixing metal and plastic fittings, but as mentioned the metal hose barbs are more secure. IMO, there is no difference between the domestic plumbing on a boat and the domestic plumbing in a house, so anything made for house plumbing should be fine. Where you don't want brass is anything with sea water flowing through it, you need plastic or better yet bronze for that. Bronze is also available for high end home plumbing, and those fittings would be fine as well.
It's not like a leak in the domestic water can sink you, but through hulls are another story.

 

[JK_Boston_Catalina310]

I am not a big fan of brass on boats. Just not a good material to have in a salt air environment. That being said I do have two brass items on my water heater that the PO installed but I haven't gotten around to changing yet.

I have this Camco Water Heater By-Pass Kit that was installed by the PO. It has a brass directional valve and check valve. I assume it's about 12-15 years old and still working.

You could get bronze, stainless steel or potable grade PVC from McMaster-Carr to replace the brass parts if you don't like having brass on your boat.

Relative to mixing metal and plastic, the issue isn't mixing the two but in what order. You always want the male portion of a threaded connection to be the weaker materials. In most situations that means you want to thread plastic into metal. This also holds true for threading a softer metal like bronze into a harder metal like stainless steel. The reason for this is that you can damage the threads and even crack the fitting if you do the opposite.

If you are going to use plastic fittings on your freshwater system, make sure that they are "CPVC" or otherwise noted for potable water use for hot and cold water. Some of the standard PVC will have breakdown constituents from being heated that are suspected carcinogens.

Just as a side note, we still have all of the original potable water lines in our 2001 boat. Eventually I will redo these (probably next year or after). When I redo this system I will go to PEX with a manifold system. The PEX system can use brass or poly fittings and I would go with the poly. This seems to be the same system that most boat builders are going to now.

Good luck and fair winds,

Jesse

 

[Stu Jackson]

I would buy bronze, just as easy to find as brass. I don't use brass on our boat. I installed a new heater two years ago and used bronze fittings from a chandlery. What's so hard?

 

[Maine Sail]

Brass & copper are perfectly fine for domestic water & *fuel systems (*no copper alloys in direct contact with aluminum fuel tanks). Brass is not a good idea for below water line applications... The T&P valve on nearly every water heater made is brass as are many of the factory fittings...