AC – ASBESTOS CEMENT  (TRANSITE)                          (1940’s – 1973)

The name asbestos-cement is very fitting to its manufacture – a combination of cement and asbestos.  This was a very common pipe for water mains and sanitary sewer, especially in the 1940’s and 50’s.  Asbestos was banned in the United States in 1973 for new construction.  But there is a difference between asbestos and asbestos-cement pipe.

“Asbestos-cement is not considered friable, and therefore not hazardous, because the cement binds the asbestos fibers and prevents their release into the air under normal conditions.  However, asbestos-cement products are classified as friable when severe deterioration disturbs the asbestos or mechanical means are used for chipping, grinding, sawing, or sanding, therefore allowing particles to become airborne.”

(Source: Keeping A Lid On It: Asbestos-Cement Building Materials by Amy Lamb Woods; August 2000; Technical Preservation Services; National Park Service)

Only if an asbestos-cement pipe is being cut, sanded or other such activities, does AC pose a possible threat.  No longer installed, but there is a vast amount of AC pipe still in use throughout the country.  Municipalities are required to check the water supply regularly to ensure that the pipes are not deteriorating.

AC pipe looks white, often with a very rough surface.  Some AC pipe was placed with a fairly tight cloth-type wrap.  AC pipe is non-conductive.

Though no longer produced, AC pipe was in the C400 category of the AWWA code.

BITUMINOUS FIBER    (ORANGEBURG / BERMICO / TAR PAPER PIPE)       (1867-1970’s)

Made of wood pulp and pitch, bituminous fiber has sometimes been called “tar paper pipe”. Used for sanitary sewer and storm drain and other non-pressure uses.  It was even used for electrical conduit in the construction of the Empire State Building in 1930-1931.  It has also been used for water pipes, both distribution and services though in limited numbers, and also used for gathering/collection lines in the petroleum industry, and for salt water pumping.

Fiber pipe of various kinds have a long history of use in America, though they did not really become popular until the 1950’s, and by that time its weaknesses were becoming more apparent.  It was discontinued in 1973-1974.  Bituminous fiber can gradually fold up or go flat in the ground.  It was used for sanitary service lines for many years, and they were clogging up from the collapse of the pipe, the build-up of inner debris, and the invasion of tree roots.  According to recent news reports, this has become a major problem in Tempe, Arizona.

The two companies that produced most of the pipe were Orangeburg and Bermico, and many people refer to the pipe by the manufacturer’s names.

When new it has a rather shiny dark appearance, but as it corrodes, it develops a general appearance of thick shellacked cardboard, which is roughly what it is.  It is rather fragile, and is usually replaced when it is uncovered.  Bituminous fiber is non-conductive.

BRASS             (1910’s? to 1940’s)

The use of brass pipe seems to have been limited to the water pipes within buildings, though there is information that it was possibly used for water services (to the meter).  Its biggest period was in the 1920’s through the 1940’s.

Brass is a yellowish colored alloy.

CONCRETE PIPE                   (1919 to present)

All 10 of the pipe materials listed below are in the Concrete Pipe category, from CCP to RCP.

Concrete pipe refers to any pipe material which consists of inner iron or steel and an outer concrete.  Both iron and steel pipe have used either inner concrete linings or outer concrete coatings, usually in very thin layers. However, “concrete pipe” refers to not only those with thin concrete layers, but iron and steel with thick layers of concrete, usually both lining and coating.  Some concrete pipe even contains additional layers of bar-wrapped steel around the cylindrical steel, then the concrete layer on the outside of that.  In other words, Concrete Pipe covers a wide range of pipe material that most people would see as being very distinct from each other.

Concrete pipe is intended for pressurized piping, and especially for very intense pressure.  It is used for transmission water mains and petroleum pipelines, though with a variety of options on the actual construction.   Concrete pipe is typically constructed in very large diameters.

Though it has concrete layers, all Concrete Pipe is conductive because of the inner steel or iron cylinder.  It all falls under the AWWA category as C300 pipe.

CCP – CONCRETE CYLINDRICAL PIPE             (1940’s to present)

This is a steel cylinder lined with cement mortar, wrapped with mild steel bar, and coated with dense cement mortar.  They come in sizes from 18” to 72”, and are mainly used today for both transmission and distribution water lines.  May also be used for pressurized sanitary lines and for pumping seawater.  Originated in the 1940’s

CEMENT-LINED CAST IRON PIPE          

CLMC – CONCRETE LINED METAL PIPE

CMC – CEMENT MORTAR COATING

CML – CEMENT MORTAR LINING

PCCP – PRESTRESSED CONCRETE CYLINDER PIPE

PCPP – PRESTRESSED CONCRETE PRESSURE PIPE 

RCCP – REINFORCED CONCRETE CYLINDER PIPE

RCPP – REINFORCED CONCRETE PRESSURE PIPE 

RCP – REINFORCED CONCRETE PIPE   (circa 1920 to present)

Technically (according to the AWWA standards) RCP is a form of Concrete Pipe, the C300 category.  However, many people in the utility industry view it as a separate pipe material, and for several reasons.

One, even though it has thick layers of inner and outer concrete, it also contains a lattice network of iron rebar instead of an inner steel cylinder.  Two, although it is a “pressure pipe” it is extremely common in gravity operated sanitary and storm systems.  This is very obvious with storm culverts.  Three, it is usually in much smaller diameters than typical Concrete Pipe.  RCP can be seen everywhere in storm and sanitary in sizes of about 10-inch to 24-inch.

RCP is used in sanitary sewer, storm sewer, water, and other uses.  RCP was also a common pipe used for main line steam systems (steam heat) a century ago in sizes of about 36-inch.

RCP is conductive because of the inner frame of iron rebar.

RCP is in the C300 category of the AWWA code with all other Concrete Pipe.

COPPER             (1940 to present)

Copper attracts the thermal temperature of the water flowing through it, instead of resisting the temperature, as most materials do.  In other words: cold water stays cold, and hot water stays hot.  It is that element of copper that has made it so popular for water pipes.

The first use of copper for water pipes in housing began around 1940.  By the 1950’s copper pipe in buildings, as well as the service pipes to the meter, was the dominant material, replacing iron and brass.  Though very uncommon, copper has been used for main line and service pipes for natural gas in very limited areas.

Copper is brownish-red in color and highly conductive.

CMP – CORRUGATED METAL PIPE        (1920’s to present)

CMP was originally made of iron when it was first introduced in the 1920’s, but galvanized steel is the more common material today.  It is used almost exclusively for storm drain culverts, and is easily recognizable because of its corrugated (rippled) form.  It is highly conductive.

HANDCRAFTED                                                                                                      

• STONEWORK

• BRICKWORK 

Handcrafted pipes are of course the oldest pipe material.  They date back thousands of years in various parts of the world and were mainly used as sanitation lines in the earliest cities as well as irrigation canals.  The actual material used was typically stone of one kind or another.

One of the oldest remaining examples of handcrafted drainage in the Americas is at the Tulum Ruins in Mexico, constructed in the 14^th century.  This city located on a cliff overlooking the Caribbean Sea, included a water runoff system made of stone, just like the rest of the city.

Because of the access to VCP, cast iron, and wood pipes in North America around 1800, handcrafted pipes were never a common sight.  In fact, it is much easier to come across handcrafted (brick) telephone manholes and duct runs than it is handcrafted pipes.  However, on very rare occasions you can come across a stone, or even more likely a brick storm sewer “pipe”.

Handmade brick pipe for sanitary sewer. As you can see, this is still in operation after more than a century.  Photo courtesy of Ryan Madl.

IRON

When discussing iron pipe it is not uncommon to hear references to gray iron, white iron, black iron, pig iron, cast iron, ductile iron, wrought iron, and malleable iron.  So, how many different types of iron pipe are there?  Actually there are only two: technically known as gray cast iron and ductile cast iron.

Basic iron is extracted from iron ore and results in a small globular metal called pig iron.  But nothing is made from just pig iron because it is too soft of a metal, about the same hardness as copper.  So small amounts of carbon are added, anywhere from 2-4% carbon for the finished product.  This is heated and then poured in to a cast to cool.  This results in a very strong metal, though somewhat brittle.

There are also other metals that may be added to produce minor differences in the metal’s characteristics: silicon, manganese, phosphorous, and sulfur.

However, all iron pipe is produced this way, so all iron pipe is “cast iron”.  There are 4 categories of cast iron: gray cast iron, white cast iron, ductile cast iron, and malleable cast iron.  But, white iron and malleable iron have never been used to produce utility pipes.  This leaves only two types of iron pipe: GRAY CAST IRON and DUCTILE CAST IRON, yet we rarely hear them referred to that way.  Instead, it is far more common to hear “cast iron” and “ductile iron”.

It is important to realize that the “gray” in gray iron is not a reference to the outer appearance of the metal.  It refers to the inner metal which you would normally never see unless the pipe is fractured.

Gray cast iron has been used to produce water pipes since at least the late 1700’s, and supposedly dates back at least a century before that.  But we do know that gray cast iron was produced from at least as far back as the 1790’s and was used up to the 1970’s in North America.

Ductile cast iron was first produced in 1948 by lowering the carbon content and adding a small amount of magnesium.  This produced a pipe that was just as strong as cast iron, but was less brittle.

This leaves us with our two types of iron pipe: cast iron (gray cast iron), produced from at least the 17th century up to the 1970’s; and ductile iron (ductile cast iron), produced from 1948 to the present.

So, what about those other names?  Black iron is a nickname sometimes used for steel when it is first produced and has a black powdered coating still intact.

Wrought iron is a real misnomer for pipes.  First of all, wrought iron is made by blacksmiths.  It is iron that is heated and pounded, then heated and pounded, again and again.  Anyone who has ever seen an old Western movie has seen blacksmiths pounding out horse shoes and branding irons on an anvil, and that is true wrought iron.  It was also very common in the 1800’s to produce elaborate wrought iron fences and gates, and made in the same method.  But wrought iron is not a term that ever accurately applies to pipes because it is impossible to produce pipes by pounding on an anvil.

The confusion of that name is that one person may be using it to refer to cast iron, another may mean galvanized iron, and another may mean galvanized steel.  Some may also use it when referring to Math pipe which is an antiquated from of steel pipe, but there is no such thing as wrought iron pipe.

All iron pipe is in the C100 category of the AWWA code.

For anyone working with municipal water supply it is advisable to read Failure Modes and Mechanisms in Gray Cast Iron Pipe, by Makar, J.M.; Desnoyers, R.; McDonald, S.E.  This is a very in depth study on the causes of failure in gray cast iron, and funded by the National Research Council of Canada.  It can be downloaded at no charge at www.nrc.ca/irc/ircpubs.

CI – CAST IRON  (Gray Cast Iron)   (circa 1700’s to the 1970’s)

Cast Iron pipe is exactly that – it is cast – molded.  It can have either a grayish or whitish color on it’s exterior, but will be more noticeably gray at any point of fracture.  Cast Iron has great tensile strength, and old cast iron pipes can stand up to heavy truck traffic in the modern world.  However, Cast Iron contains a high amount of carbon.  It is very brittle and does not bend in any way.  If there is too much pressure on the pipe it will simply crack open.

By some accounts Cast Iron supposedly originated roughly 500 years ago, though information on this previous to about 1800 is hard to find.  What we do know for certain is that Cast Iron pipe was being used in North America by the early 1800’s.  The oldest confirmed use was a 10-inch water main placed in Quebec in 1816.  This pipe was removed and replaced in about 1952.

One of the oldest known Cast Iron pipes in the U.S. was a 7-inch water main placed in Lynchburg, Virginia in 1828.  Cast Iron gas pipes (for gas lighting) were being installed in Eastern cities by 1835.

Cast Iron has been heavily used for water pipes, natural gas, steam pipes, corrosive liquids, and sanitary and storm pipes.

Cast Iron was the most popular pipe material for use as water mains until the 1950’s (being gradually replaced by Ductile Iron), and for natural gas pipes until probably the 1930’s (being replaced by Steel).

However, estimates are that Cast Iron (Gray Cast Iron) still constitutes about 50% of all the water mains in use today in North America.

Cast Iron is typically bell and spigot joints belowground, and flange joints aboveground.

DI – DUCTILE IRON (Ductile Cast Iron)   (1948 to present)

The popularity of Ductile Iron is the result of it having the tensile strength of Cast Iron, but much less brittle, so it does not crack easily.

Ductile Iron was invented in 1948 by lowering the carbon content, and the addition of magnesium.  Ductile Iron pipe is “cast” as all iron pipes are, but is usually referred to as simply “ductile iron”.

Ductile Iron typically has an outer zinc and asphalt coating along with a water-based paint, however, since its original inception, Ductile Iron has also commonly been installed with a black polyethylene plastic wrap or “baggy” which is not physically attached to the pipe, but only loosely wrapped around it.  This is actually Ductile Iron’s most noticeable feature.

Ductile Iron typically uses bell and spigot joints belowground and flange joints aboveground, and occasionally with additional mechanical joints.

Ductile Iron has been by far the most common type of metal pipe used for water distribution mains since the 1950’s, although steel pipe is installed in lesser quantities, usually for transmission water pipes.

LEAD  (Ancient times to 1986)

The use of lead dates back at least to ancient times in the Roman Empire.  That includes the use of lead as a pipe material because of its malleability.

It has been used for water pipes in the United States even before the American Revolution, yet it was not an extremely popular choice until the late 1800’s.  At that time the producers of lead pipe formed an organization to promote the use of lead instead of cast iron which had always been the popular choice.

The health risks of using lead were already being discussed as early as the 1840’s but the lead industry fought against the negative reports and by the 1930’s they were convincing numerous municipalities to rewrite their building codes to mandate lead water services and water mains.

They were very successful at this and the use of lead water pipes, especially in the large cities, became the norm.  Today, Chicago is thought to still have a higher number of lead water pipes in use than any other city in America.  However, lead pipes are still very common today, predominantly in the cities, but also in many small towns.

The main push to address the hazards of lead in drinking water began to make an impact in the 1960’s, but it was not until 1986 that lead was finally banned from use in the U.S.

Lead is a very light bluish-gray metal, and was used almost exclusively for water mains and services.  However, be advised that all buried telephone and power cables placed up to about 1950 had a lead coating, and can resemble small lead water pipes.

Lead is technically conductive, but only slightly.  It is a very weak conductor, and not containing any ferrous metal, it does not attract a magnet.

Lead pipe was never assigned an AWWA code.

MATH PIPE  (MATHESON PIPE)    (1880’s to 1930’s)

Math pipe was produced by the Matheson Steel Mill, though the history of that company is not available.

Matheson pipe was by all accounts the first steel pipe.  However, it came about in the 1880’s when steel welding was new and was being used only to weld other products.  So, although Math pipe was made of steel it was manufactured in a way that did not require any welding.

Math pipe was made of long thin steel sheets.  The long sheets were rolled, then riveted together, then molten lead was poured in the seam to seal the pipe.  The services were attached to the main with large brackets, connecting into the top of the water main, and each service consists of a series of joints bringing the service pipe up and over the water main, and then outward towards the house.  This somewhat resembles a faucet assembly under a sink.

There are still active Math pipes in the Northwest and in the Rocky Mountain States, and possibly in other areas.

Math pipe is made of thin bare steel.  It is unlined on the interior and uncoated on the outside, therefore being true bare steel pipe.  They have a seam along the side, and with elaborate service connections to the main.  Math pipe is highly conductive.

POLY PIPE – POLYMER     (PLASTIC)    (1951 to present)   

The word “plastic” actually means flexible or changeable.  Charles Darwin used the word “plastic” and “plasticity” commonly in his 1859 publication The Origin of Species in reference to evolution.

Today we use the word “plastic” in referring to a certain type of material, those which are made from an assortment of artificial polymers.  Plastic pipes include CPP, tan resin gas pipes, polyethylene pipes for water or gas, PVC, and many others.  Many people in the utility industry use the word “Poly” or “Polymer” which is far more descriptive.

Artificial polymers were first introduced in the mid 1800’s, but were mainly used for experimental applications on various products.  This became more popular in the 1930’s as scientists began to understand the structure of artificial polymers, but were still not being used for producing pipes.

The first use of poly pipe was 1951 and used for salt water runoff and petroleum gathering lines in the oil fields.  In that period poly pipe was often labeled by various trade names of the manufacturers, such as Kralastic.  By 1955 poly pipe was being produced for water lines for both water distribution and farm irrigation.   PE pipe was first used for gas distribution in 1959 in Caney, Kansas.  Since the 1970’s it has become the material of choice for sanitary sewer laterals, and very common for sanitary main lines.

Today poly pipe is being used for water, natural gas, sanitary, storm, oil field lines and industrial/chemical plants.

All poly pipe is non-conductive.  The original poly pipe was usually black, but now it comes in a variety of colors.

All poly pipe is in the C900 category of the AWWA code.

ABS – ACRYLONITRILE-BUTADIENE-STYRENE                                                                                 

Common pipe material for sanitary sewer, storm sewer and other uses.  Rigid and resistant to a variety of acids and bases.  ABS is black in color and has the look and feel of very hardened rubber.

Storm drain inlet with ABS pipe.

CPP – CORRUGATED PLASTIC PIPE

Almost always black in color, CPP is mainly used as storm water pipes.

CPP culvert pipe.

CPVC – CHLORINATED POLYVINYL CHLORIDE

A variation of PVC.  Designed specifically for piping water at up to 180°F (82°C).

HDPE – HIGH DENSITY POLYETHYLENE PIPE

Black in color, or black with a yellow stripe.

PB – POLYBUTYLENE

Flexible pipe for pressurized water, hot or cold.

PE – POLYETHYLENE   (known as “Polythene” in the UK)

The original PE pipe was usually black, but eventually altered to match the APWA color code for its intended use: blue for water, yellow for gas, and green for sanitary.

Originally PE pipe for gas was tan resin (a kind of tannish-pink or dulled-orange) then altered to yellow resin in the 1980’s.

95% of all gas distribution pipes being placed today in the U.S. are PE, and the percentage is roughly the same with water pipes.  PE water pipe is blue in color.

PEX – CROSS LINKED POLYETHYLENE  (Uponor)     

Earlier version was called CAB-XL.  Widely used at industrial and chemical plants.

Uponor is one brand of PEX pipe.

PP – POLYPROPYLENE

Highly resistant to acids, bases, and solvents.  Used in petroleum industry for salt water disposal lines and low pressure gas gathering

PVC – POLYVINYL CHLORIDE

PVC is the most common plastic pipe material in North America, but this is partially because of its heavy use for sprinkler systems, not for gas or water distribution.  However, PVC has been used for water and gas distribution on some occasions.  PVC is typically white in color but has been produced in blue.  PVC is unusual in that the letters “PVC” are printed on to the pipe.

RPM  (REINFORCED PLASTIC MORTAR)      (Fiberglass Pipe / Techite)      (1967 to present)

This material is made of fiberglass and resin, hence the nickname “fiberglass pipe”.  RPM was more expensive than other pipe materials, but it was very lightweight and easy to install.  It was designed for use in water distribution.

The original RPM (with the brand name Techite) had not gone through enough testing before it was offered for sale.  It was discovered too late that after a period of time the water actually softened the pipe material.  Any water pipe that was under a road with heavy vehicle traffic (trucks) could possibly burst the pipe.

In the 1980’s there were several very serious breakages that resulted in major property damage.  The original RPM did not develop leaks, but instead was prone to bursting wide open spewing massive amounts of water in a very short period of time. Many municipalities had already installed a great deal of it in the ground by the time its weaknesses became apparent.  Numerous lawsuits were filed and the product was shut down.  RPM was no longer for sale starting in 1990.

However, after more research was conducted it was discovered that the problem was not in the material, but in the lack of consistent quality control during manufacture.  In 1997 RPM was once again made available, now with new manufacturing guidelines, but by now it had a very bad reputation, and its installation has been very limited.  There is no known bursting of any RPM pipe manufactured since 1997.

Because of its limited installation, we have no photos or reliable description of this material.  Made of only fiberglass and resin, RPM is non-conductive.

STEEL  (1880’s? to present)

Steel is by definition is iron with less than 2% carbon added, however, typically steel has less than 0.5% carbon.  Depending on the exact type of steel it may have manganese, silicon, phosphorous and sulfur as well.

This low carbon content produces a metal with a higher tensile strength than iron pipe (cast or ductile), and yet has a somewhat bendable nature which allows it to be hit without fracturing, at least not easily.

Steel was patented in 1855, though there is little information on when it was first used to produce pipes.  It is known that regular steel pipe was being used for water pipes as early as the 1920’s.  This was at about the same time that Math pipe (see MATH PIPE), a specific type of steel pipe, was being discontinued.  The change may have been due in part to the availability of welding the pipe.  Math pipe was never welded, but standard Steel pipe is known to have been using welding joints by the 1930’s at which time welding Steel became the norm.

Today Steel pipe is used for water transmission and some distribution, natural gas distribution, high pressure gas, and petroleum.  It is also used commonly for the remaining steam systems in the country.

Various coatings have been used for Steel pipe such as coal-tar enamel, thin concrete, 3-layer asbestos felt wraps, and poly insulation, therefore, Steel can have a variety of appearances.  However, steel pipe with concrete coating is usually restricted to petroleum pipeline.

Steel pipe is highly conductive, and easily weldable.

Steel pipe is the C200 category of the AWWA code.

Galvanized Steel is produced by coating steel pipe with zinc, and was commonly used for sprinkler systems before the popularity of poly pipe.  This was of course restricted to smaller diameter pipes only.  Galvanized Steel is one of the most easily recognizable pipe materials because it sold in almost any hardware store.

SURPLUS MATERIAL   (1940’S?)

• TWRT – THIN WALLED ROCKET TUBING
• TX

Information on surplus materials used for pipes is very difficult to come by, yet the pipes themselves are certainly in existence, and can be found noted on rare occasions on utility prints.  One of these is TWRT which stands for Thin Walled Rocket Tubing, and was supposedly made from surplus rocket material from World War II.  This is not in any way explosive, but used only the thin-walled rocket shell.

The reasoning behind this would have certainly been from the lack of materials of all kinds during the war, and utility owners were scrambling for repair materials.  TWRT has been used for gas distribution mains.

Another very rare pipe material used for gas mains is TX, though this may well be the same material as TWRT.

All surplus material pipes are extremely rare, and usually as gas mains.  Whatever actual alloys were used, both TWRT and TX are very conductive.

VCP  (VITRIFIED CLAY PIPE)         (Clay / Vitrified Clay Tile – VCT / Terra Cotta / Ceramic Pipe)    (1815 to present)

Clay pipe is sometimes referred to as “Terra Cotta”, however, that moniker refers to molded clay designs other than pottery, such as clay sculpture.  The term is an Italian phrase meaning “baked earth”.  So, even though some people use the term “Terra Cotta” when referring to clay pipes, it is strictly a form of Italian artwork, not a pipe material.

Some others also have the habit of referring to Clay Pipe as “Ceramic Pipe”.  There is a commonality to them.  Both Clay Pipe and Ceramic figurines are produced by using clay compounds which are baked at extremely high temperatures.  Typically this produces a rough or bisque form.  If the material is then glazed, then the final product will have a very smooth and shiny surface.  Both Clay Pipe and Ceramic figurines are produced in both “bisque” and “glazed” forms though for different reasons.

Is there a difference between clay pipe and vitrified clay pipe?  Many people are convinced that there is.  However, in the book Vitrified Clay Pipe – Engineering Handbook published by the Clay Pipe Institute in 1956, no mention is ever made of any difference between the two.  The terms “clay pipe” and “vitrified clay pipe” are used interchangeably throughout the entire book.

Clay pipe was the original pipe material and can be found in excavation sites of the ancient world.  All clay pipe, including the pipes of ancient civilization, were “baked”.  All clay material must be baked, even if that baking is nothing more than “baking in the sun”.   It must be heated for an extended time in order to create a permanent hardness.

However, VCP is a pipe made of clay and shale, and heated to 2000 degrees Celsius for 50 hours, in much the same way as ceramics are produced.  This creates a very strong bond in the material and since it is often glazed during the heating process, VCP becomes a very durable sewer pipe, impervious to almost all chemical degradation.

So, what is comes down to is this.  Clay pipe is ancient, and has been used for thousands of years.  But, once VCP became available over 200 years ago, there does not seem to be any evidence that regular clay pipe was ever used again.

First known use of VCP pipe anywhere was a sanitary pipe placed in Washington D.C. in 1815.  The first in Wales was buried in 1829, England in 1845, and Scotland in 1850.

Many cities in America are still relying on the original VCP sanitary sewer systems they installed in the 1800’s.  Most of them are showing no sign of corroding or leakage.  It has also been used occasionally for water pipes.

Vitrified clay has been used for producing squared telephone duct runs in the UK since at least 1904 (Vitrified Clay Tile – VCT), and in the U.S. since about the same time period.  VCP is probably the most common material for sanitary mains in America.

VCP can have bell and spigot joints, or one of two types of steel collar band joints.  It is reddish-brown in color.  Usually shiny in appearance because of the glazing, but not all VCP is glazed.  VCP is non-conductive.

WOOD PIPE     (1803 to 1930?)

To be precise, wood pipes are a handmade pipe and could be listed in that category.  However, they are usually considered to a unique pipe material all their own, so they are separated here for clarification.

The earliest known water main in North America is thought to be a wooden main placed in Philadelphia in 1803.  The use of wood as a pipe material was very common throughout the 19^th century, and well into the 20^th century.  It was used for telephone duct runs beginning in the 1880’s, but was mainly used for water pipes.

In 1870 a 25-mile long natural gas pipeline (used for gas street lights) was constructed between Rochester, New York and West Bloomfield.  The pipeline was made entirely of White Pine wood.

Wood pipes were produced in three different methods.  The most common method was to drill out the center.  For larger pipes the wood was flat slats bound with wire.  The largest pipes were again made of wood slats, but with wide metal staves or bands around them.

As long as the wood has a constant water present, it will expand and seal any seams.  This is the same principle that was used for the wooden banded water barrels we see in old photos of pioneer wagons and water troughs.  This is why wood became such a popular water pipe.  Sewage would be present or absent, and the pipe would dry out, but with pressurized water mains the water was always present and kept the pipe intact.

Wooden water pipes are regularly being uncovered to this day, and commonly still intact and functioning.  In fact, they have become a bit of a collector’s item with many utility workers cutting them into smaller sections and displaying them as a keepsake.

The last known application of wooden water pipe that can be confirmed in the U.S. was in 1926.

Wooden pipes are very obvious in their appearance, and may only be still in service as a short connection between two iron mains.