could avoid in 2014. According to Knapp, “There was a lot of confusion about what exactly had to be done, how to dispose of inventory, who was covered. One person said, ‘I don’t need it, I’m with the government.’” Knapp said that on January 1, 2014, the sale of valves, fittings and fixtures with a weighted average lead content of more than 0.25 percent will be prohibited for any use with potable water. “That means if you are caught with a large inventory, you cannot install it or sell it to anyone,” Knapp said. McDonald said manufacturers, utilities, distributors and others have to “back up the entire distribution chain to the manufacturer, who is the first line of defense.” For example, after June 2013, A.Y. McDonald may no longer guarantee delivery of leaded waterworks brass products. That gives us time to flush our own inventory. “A proactive utility will start a day before we do. In fact, if I was a water utility, I would convert right now,” said McDonald. Developing a lead-free product required a lot of experimentation with alloy formulations and processes, said A.Y. McDonald Engineering VP Steve Tefft.
meet the requirements of UNS Copper Alloy C89833 per ASTM B584-09a, in addition to being ANSI/NSF 61 and 372 certified. For more information, visit A.Y. McDonald’s special website (www.noleadbrass.com), the company website (www.aymcdonald.com), or e-mail sales@aymcdonald. com.
“Our waterworks brass products currently contain nominally 85 percent copper, 5 percent lead, 5 percent tin and 5 percent zinc. We could not reduce copper content due to corrosion concerns and wanted to keep tin content high for added strength and corrosion resistance. We had some margin with zinc, but did not want to increase its percentage content. We experimented with various percentages of bismuth, which is next to lead on the Periodic Table, to replace lead, which helps provide pressure tightness in castings and good machining characteristics. “ Once we had a workable formula, we went through a lot of casting and machining tests, and corrosion studies. The bottom line is our lead-free products perform equally to our traditional leaded products,” Tefft said. All A.Y. McDonald no-lead waterworks brass products
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