galvanized steel and cast iron — can mostly all be connected to each other with appropriate fittings. With all the different pipe sizes and materials out there, things can get confusing.

Q: I live in a 1940s house that has galvanized pipes. The cold-water tap in the ... this process is well-established. For home-size water lines, one concern would be whether the coating reached ...

The older the pipes are, the more potential there is for leaking. In the early 1960s, the housing industry decided to change the water lines from the old galvanized steel pipes to copper.