Chinese Gas Pipe

[Drm50]

I ran about 50' of 1/2" gas line for a ventless NG heater. Ran out
of 1/2" pipe and picked up a 10' joint at a Busy Beaver store.
I cut off what I needed and had to thread one end. Die was
cutting funny like it was dull or no lube. Got it threaded and fitted
up. I had several fittings in line ending up with a shut off. Turned
gas on and smelled a leak. Ran all joints with Snoope, no leak.
Ran joints with a match, no leak. Still smelled gas. Got the Gas
man to stop. He ran joints with his Sniffer, no leaks. He then
ran down the pipe with sniffer and found pipe was leaking in
the section I had just bought at BB. I found out that Chinese
gas pipe was formed and full length welded. A pin hole in weld
was the leak. The Chinese pipe is painted with shiney black
Laquer so you can't see the weld from outside. I always buy
full joints at Plumbing supply of US made pipe. I never gave
buying that 10' section a though about quality. I will from now
on. Besides extra work and lost time the safety factor is a concern. I wouldn't want to live in a house with that gas pipe
Installed. I wonder if this rash of home explosions due to gas
leaks may be due to sub standard pipe? Becareful what you buy.

 

[NYlakesider]

Welding on that pipe can be very interesting also!

 

[Ivan the Butcher]

I had some small/odd lengths of black pipe do at a Do-it-Best HDW a summer ago. The outer diameter was a little bigger than some old US pipe I had! It wouldn't fit inside a standard threading die! Total waste of my time!

Ivan

 

[Drm50]

I had some small/odd lengths of black pipe do at a Do-it-Best HDW a summer ago. The outer diameter was a little bigger than some old US pipe I had! It wouldn't fit inside a standard threading die! Total waste of my time!

Ivan

I never thought about the diameter being off. I wrote it off to
be the steel because of hard and easy cutting. I was using
standard Rigid die and it did resist getting the starting bite. I
am going to check Dia of that pipe.

 

[30-30remchester]

During the gutting of the steel industry in the US, about anything steel was being produced in the China. Well casing made domestically was scarce to say the least. I got a load of well casing made from recycled material, I found out later, built in Korea. When using a torch to cut or an arch welder to weld this pipe it would often blow a big hole ahead of the flame. This was from impurities in the metal that I never experienced in any of the dozens of truck loads of domestic pipe I have used over the years. I was so glad when that junk was finally buried in the ground.

 

[Roadtrash]

I spent most of my working life as a pipefitter/welder and ran into this several times. As someone already stated it's really hard to weld or cut with a torch not to mention threading it. We also on one job got a box of 50 3/4 inch 90 degree ells and they were all either about 85 degrees or 95 degrees but none were 90 degrees. Had to throw the whole box away. We mentioned sending them back to the distributor but we were told because they were so cheap it wasn't worth the trouble so we just threw them all in the scrap bin. And so goes the future of the world.

 

[Jack Flash]

There's a big downside to this "ship all the work overseas to save money" notion. I'm reminded of an incident that happened in St Louis when I lived there circa 1990.

Seems new light posts were being installed all along a busy freeway and someone got the bright idea to buy the requisite nuts and bolts from a factory in Pakistan. Saved a boat load of money. Then one day, a light structure toppled, killing a motorist.

The bolts had sheered off. Even though they had the high strength markings, testing showed they nowhere near the specified strength. Apparently, the factory would make all its bolts out of mild steel and put as many lines on the bolt head as the customer required.

 

[Rule3]

Everything is JUNK!

Don't get me started on Chinese DRYWALL!

We don't make anything anymore!

 

[BigBill]

I did the welding and fabrication for the engineering group I worked for, you should try welding the garbage steel were importing. The minute the heat hits it, it warps. The powers to be told me to stop keeping a steel inventory in-house. It was taking months to get steel for projects. It bit them you know where. I was told they don’t stock steel in the northeast because there is less manufacturing in the northeast now. My steel was coming from the Midwest to the west coast. If they have it in stock. Then they send me garbage.

Steel And pipe we import is junk. I had a 20’ piece of 4” channel warp n bow 12” in the center. I needed it to hold a welding curtain I needed it straight.

 

[BigBill]

There's a big downside to this "ship all the work overseas to save money" notion. I'm reminded of an incident that happened in St Louis when I lived there circa 1990.

Seems new light posts were being installed all along a busy freeway and someone got the bright idea to buy the requisite nuts and bolts from a factory in Pakistan. Saved a boat load of money. Then one day, a light structure toppled, killing a motorist.

The bolts had sheered off. Even though they had the high strength markings, testing showed they nowhere near the specified strength. Apparently, the factory would make all its bolts out of mild steel and put as many lines on the bolt head as the customer required.

Remember the bolts shearing off on the Mack truck pitman arms a few years back.? 50,000lbs to 80,000lbs rolling with no steering. Imported fasteners great.

 

[BigBill]

Everything is JUNK!

Don't get me started on Chinese DRYWALL!

We don't make anything anymore!

We only make babies here now maybe they will cut costs on that too?

 

[Arik]

I'll say this.... With some exceptions the Chinese build to price. In other words, if the company is willing to pay more they get a better product. The company knows what they're getting and what they're paying for. Yes there are exceptions to every rule.

I will say this, their gov doesn't mess around. If anyone remembers the Chinese tainted milk problem in 2008 where several babies died and many thousands we're hospitalized. Out of the 8 people whom were found guilty 2 were executed, 3 got life in prison, 1 got five years and another had the death penalty suspended

Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk

 

[snake803]

Here's another instance ..It' dated 1992, but it's the same junk....

https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/gen-comm/info-notices/1992/in92068.html

JIM...............

 

[Drm50]

Many things that are sold, even if made in USA have hardware
packages that are bid out. This especially are bolts, screws,
nuts, ect. I take this into consideration when assembling these
items. If it is an important load bearing connection I replace
with a quality USA bolt. This is true on everything from toilets
to garage doors. Name brand plumbing fixtures have cheap
plated steel bolts & nuts. If you don't replace them you will
be fighting rusted fasteners the next time you have to work
on them. I replace with brass hardware. If I'm in doubt I will
replce with US made hardware. For a buck or two it is good
Insurance.

 

[mtgianni]

Local code requires a pressure test of anything over 10' of pipe addition for fuel gas. This proves why it is a good idea any time. Even a spot meter test or a pressure drop test should show a faulty seam. I worked in the gas utility industry from 1980 until I retired this summer. There are some shortcuts that do not apply in this trade. Even so I have had bad seams show up on US pipe over they years. The bad news is when it is already in the ground, the good news is it takes a lot of gas in the wrong place to cause an explosion.

 

[rwsmith]

We had a pilot plant....

We had a hydrogenation plant that ran extremely high pressure. It was in a blast proof structure with the blast wall pointed toward the big piles of wood chips (paper mill). That was when everybody in the world started making pipe and the prices were dirt cheap. Nobody in town stocked domestic tubing any more so we got several sticks from a supplier and installed them. The 1/4" heavy wall tubing BLEW OUT in several places. It was soft as solder in places.

I remember getting some pipe tees from Pakistan, India or somewhere that looked like a lump of stainless steel from a sand mold, drilled through and tapped to make the tee. No finish at all. It was literally a rough lump of casting drilled and tapped. I'm glad I'm not dealing with that any more.

 

[Drm50]

I plumbed up a bathroom and laundry room with 1/2" copper.
The guy wanted separate shutt offs in the basement for each
line. Got 1/2" brass body ball valves from Lowes. Got everything
sweated in and turned on the water. Every last one of those
valves leaked. Not though the valve itself but through the brass
body. The brass cast bodies had Mexico cast in the brass. They
all had pinhole leaks in same place in the lettering. This foreign
junk is a waste of money in the long run.