Is it a bad idea to use generic O-rings that aren't "food and drinking water safe" in your tap plumbing?
Is it a bad idea to use generic O-rings that aren't "food and drinking water safe" in your tap plumbing?
Is it a bad idea to use generic O-rings that aren't "food and drinking water safe" in your tap plumbing?
recently checked some faucet seals (disks, not o-ring); some of that stuff has the nastiest smell ever, so that should give you an hint; if not, this will:
https://www.realnatural.org/is-smelly-china-plastic-toxic/
and if still not, then best luck to you...
But I love that rubber smell.
>and if still not, then best luck to you..
I agree that some toxins matter. I don't see how this can be an example. An o-ring that works for more than a month is not giving off much of anything, and we evolved in a pretty harsh environment so that an infinitesimal bit of something is not going to give you cancer.
I bet you don't let your kids crawl around on the floor putting everything in sight in their mouths.
Which reminds me; one time when I was painting a house I saw a little kid, like one or two years old, over at my tool bag gnawing on my dust brush. Yeah, that's going a bit far. After gently prying it from her nasty paws I put it where she could no longer get to it. Was that my negligence? A bit, but this was the house where mom watched her older boy run laps around me as I rolled the kitchen ceiling until I successfully cracked him in the head two good times with the roller pole, and even then she didn't react, but he learned, I suppose, because I had no more opportunities to educate him.
LOL in that same house the middle girl about 4 years old came up to me one day with a screw that the carpenters had dropped, and kindly informed me that this "nail" could stick in her eye and she'd have to go to the hospital, so would I be more careful. I adore little kids.
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That's a really wholesome boomer story, Anon.
Aren't generic plumbing gaskets and o-rings basically the same thing? I doubt they are food grade.
>tl;dr
if you like stories, the reason i was looking for gaskets is precise because water tasted like shit, and that was because of the gasket. it was only for a brief while after opening the tap (because it'd seep to the water in the pipe), but still not what you want if you care about your health at all, but, like I said, your mileage may vary.
They do wear out. Typical lifespan of rubber is about 10 years before it starts to really degrade.
that was a newly installed faucet (and gaskets); it wss just s cheap chinkery. bathrooms ended up being redone anyway, so it got replaced un the process.
I've got a background in molecular biology, so here's my take. Some cancers (and health problems in general) have clear-cut cause and effect relationships. Things like smoking and lung cancer, or heritable alleles like those that contribute to breast cancer, have a strong connection. But, even in those cases it's not 100% - some people smoke their whole lives and develop no problems, and some people with the cancer-causing alleles never develop breast cancer. And some people develop those cancers for no discernible reason. So like pretty much everything else in science it all comes down to probabilities. Keep in mind that cancer never has a single cause, like "I sprayed bug poison this one day." Cells have to accumulate several mutations over many generations before becoming cancerous. As pointed out, our bodies are really good not only at dealing with toxins, but killing pre-cancerous cells before they become cancer. We can tolerate a lot of shit but every exposure increases the probability of a mutation that will contribute to a cell line becoming cancerous. So, while any single small thing like plasticizers leeched from shitty o-rings won't outright give you cancer, it will buy you another ticket for the cancer lottery. Many of the most toxic or carcinogenic compounds are bioactive in ridiculously low concentrations, so if you can noticeably taste it like
said it's best to change it. You can't eliminate all or even most of the things in your environment that will contribute to cancer, but a small expense like buying the correct rings to lower the odds is worth it to me. Keep in mind also that this is for drinking water, which is 100% absorbed by the body along with anything dissolved in it, and not incidental contact with your skin.
tl;dr: eating chinese plastic will make you a 6ft gigachad
Everything else in there will give you manbreasts, so it evens out. I'd imagine whole sections of PVC piping is way worse than a few gaskets and o-rings. Who knows what materials the municipality uses anyway.
Using a hammer from Harbor Freight will give you cancer if you swing it within California state lines as well. Don’t even get me started on the C-clamps! You might as well smoke 2 packs a day!
more likely a micropenis chud, though; or at least your descendents
china puts hazardous chemicals in materials it sends to the US, and puts a lot of lead in the stainless steel cookware. Its retaliation for what the west (US and England) has done to china.
I like to scrape off the non-stick coating from cheap Chinese frying pans and smoke it because of the high fentanyl and mercury content. Easy way to catch a good buzz.
But pretty much everything is manufactured in china. How do I get the super secret non-toxic products?
Chances are it'll be fine, but purpose-made plumbing o rings are so cheap it begs the question of why bother to save 50 cents. But if you're in a pinch, sure, better than no o ring
This
Those kits should be fine. Pretty sure those are totally drinking water safe, the main issue with o-rings is getting the right type when dealing with gas and oil and solvents or crazy temps. Ask Morton Thiokok about that.
>totally drinking water safe
The text on the packaging explicitly states it isn't THOUGH.
Yeah yeah slap some silicone grease on there and be done with it. Everything causes cancer in California.
What portion of whatever the frick will actually get into drinking water over the 5+ year lifespan of the o-ring? They’re not really water soluble
One of those little guys from the kit saved my pressure washer suface cleaner recently. Now I can drink from the surface cleaner again without drips!
>California
The kit was from Lidl actually.
Seriously though you know it’s liability, right? They probably don’t want to be liable for a kid choking on it when somebody installs it inproperly and parts of it come out of a faucet.
It's the same OEM as the non-metric O-ring harbor freight assortment. Same red box. Blue box is metric.
Liability. Since they told you, you can't blame them later.
Harbor Freight has a Viton kit, and some other types that might be more chemically stable. And last longer. I've only had experience with the viton kit, and those are a lot firmer than standard rubber o-rings.
Its actually metric and comes in a red box with a clear lid. I doubt it matters because they all most likely come from the same few chink factories.
This
There might be metric o-rings, but those red and blue kits are all the same sizes. Made me laugh when I looked at them and did the math.
I’m with you on the larger seals, but that cheap kit was good enough for a couple fixes.
The "metric" and standard o-ring kits from harbor freight are the exact same kit just in different color cases and they converted the measurements into metric measurements...
There is no such thing as metric o-rings. There are different cross sections of the o-ring material and different diameters... As far as I know the cross sections are labeled by the first # of the o-ring size. 0-4 they may go higher than that, but 4 (0.275") is the largest cross section I have the capabilities of measuring on my o-ring measuring kits and would be duck-huge for pretty much anything...
So I guess there are metric o-rings. But I've never actually ran across one in the wild. I dunno...
theoringstore.com has you covered. They have all kinds of info, o-ring tools, and every single imaginable size of o-ring and oil seals on there. Good prices too!
lol can you imagine buying a house that has plumbing with o-rings from that cheap ass harbor freight kit since the guy who did it asked PrepHole and they said it was ok
I swear whenever I need an o-ring the kit I have has the wrong size, and I end up going to ace hardware anyways slightly annoyed.
Always seem to need larger, thin o-rings, and my set scales equally in all dimensions as it gets larger.
It has its uses, but finding thin and specialty o-rings and washers is a b***h.
Use EPDM seals. Don't use fluoroelastomers or buna-n if you want it to last.