Stopcock blunder?

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Advice wanted please...
I've Recently purchased a house in need of a bit of work, today I went in search of the mains water stopcock as I'm having a new kitchen, the photo is what i found, it's absolutely soaking wet, the tap is dripping and looks like it has been for many years, my main question is....
Why is the pipe coming in copper?
I was expecting to find lead or at best plastic but not copper as I'm pretty sure the solder breaks down on the joints with copper when exposed to plaster or cement.
The photo is taken under the sink against an external wall.
Thanks for any advice
 
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1. No one can know why the incoming pipe is copper. Could be any number of reasons.
2. Its not the solder that gets attacked by plaster / cement, its the copper itself which can become pin-holed.
3. If you want to be absolutely sure, get the copper replaced as far back as the meter / water board stopcock. Likely to be expensive.
4. If want to be fairly sure, expose the copper back beyond the concrete / plaster. If showing signs of pin-holing replace, wrap new copper in Denso tape or use plastic coated copper (but you'll have to wrap the joints).
5. If you like taking a risk, make sure you can turn the supply off in the street / before your property and leave it. Check from time to time to make sure it stays dry. If it does eventually leak, do 3. or 4. then.
6. Replace the stopcock with a decent make like a Pegler, or use a full bore lever valve instead.
7. Should have a drain off point fitted just above the stopcock.
 
Thanks for you advice... I'll do some digging tomorrow and inspect it furthur
 
Find the water board stop tap, see what sort of pipework comes from it towards your house.
Probably lead.
Add 'replace main water supply pipe' to the infinite jobs list (not sure if this is still the case but used to be if you ran new blue placcie pipe from house to boundary they'd do the rest for free).
If it is copper prob best to replace it anyway, 15mm is a bit skinny for a whole house
 
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Good advice, thanks.... I'll have a look at that in the morning
 

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