The siphon of my bathroom sink was clogged up again, and I became curious on why it clogged up so quickly each time. So I decided to open the pipe and was shocked to see the plumbing like this:
Initially I thought it was mold, but the white stuff has is rather solid and it might be some sort of salt. Inside I found two three EUR cent coins which have a steel core and a copper coating. They were heavily corroded and seemed to have fused with the inner wall of the pipe. The copper coating was open and the steel core visible.
When I put it back together, the pipe cracked when I applied some torque with the wrench. The wall must have become really thin. The crash has a rust color, and the whole inside of the pipe also has this typical rust red.
I guess that the pipe is made from steel with a chromium coating.
A prior tenant has excessively used pipe cleaner, this highly alkaline granulate. So we have a steel pipe, a chromium coating, copper coins with a steel core, lots of alkaline granulate and hand soap.
My chemistry education unfortunately stopped in high school, but I would be really interested in the following things?
- What could the stuff on the outside be? Some sodium iron chromium salt?
- I've read that the pipe cleaner is really bad for plumbing (that's why I never use that stuff), but I don't understand how say NaOH would interact with solid Fe. How does that work?
- Could the copper coins have made the rust process of the pipe worse?
