In Latin the word for lead is “plumbum.” It is one of the first metals that man learned to manipulate during the bronze age because of its malleability, softness, and density. Workers of lead, called “plumbarius” in Latin and “plummier” in Old French, eventually discovered the metal’s resistance to corrosion and decided to use it for more than just weapons and building materials – they created the first “modern” pipes. Thus, the word “plumber” is derived from plumbum because all plumbers were originally workers of lead.
After the innovations of the open ditch and hollowed out tree trunk, lead was used to create sophisticated pipe networks, primarily in Rome. Plumarius would form the lead pipes by creating sheets of molten metal and folding them inward to form a circle. They then crimped the metal where the two sides came together, which made a water tight seal. As they did with many technologies, the Romans took lead pipe technology above that of their predecessors and beyond their immediate successors. The Romans created large bath houses with cold and hot water! To finish the water’s journey to the large bath houses, which were used for communal events including general socializing and political negotiations, elaborate water faucets and spouts were created, many of which were also made from lead.
A couple thousand years later, after many of the secrets to smelting different types of metal had been discovered, lead was still being used, especially in the burgeoning cities of the United States. During the Industrial Revolution lead was still being used because of its resistance to corrosion, but it was also combined at that time with iron. Rigid metals like iron, when combined with lead, facilitated the expansion of the plumbing system and the vertical demands of multi-level buildings. However, by the 20th century, copper took the lead in the plumbing pipe industry because of its abundance and similar resistance to corrosion. Still, lead solder was was used to join the copper pipes up until the last quarter of the 20th century when the health effects that had afflicted America, and Rome, for so long were traced back to their source.
Lead, whether ingested orally or through skin contact, acts as a neurotoxin and has been found to cause long term health damage and even death. Long-term exposure leads to nephropathy and colic-like abdominal pains, affecting every organ in the body. All of these reasons, along with a plethora of people who have been defeated by the devastating effects of lead, made Congress pass the Safe Drinking Water Act. This means that pipes that carry consumable water to humans must be relatively free of lead. I say relatively because 0.2{7871f4c91f79cbddef59511eb5b9899c6f1d497baab0afdeab5a98ee6e504626} of lead is allowed in solder, and 8{7871f4c91f79cbddef59511eb5b9899c6f1d497baab0afdeab5a98ee6e504626} is allowed in pipes. The government has found that these ratios of lead to other pipe material are acceptable and do not cause harm.
People need to know what is behind the walls of their home and allow the professional plumbers to fix the problem and give new meaning to the word “plumber”.
