L being the thicker wall copper tubing. Still, M gets used a lot and should last about forever. Funny, my boat has copper tubing from all three monel water tanks, and it's still working fine. But the labor that went into routing that soft half inch copper through a boat, forming flare fittings at the all the joints, would cost a fortune today.

I have a claw foot tub on a project I need to get rid of. Except for some dulling of the porcelin and some rust around the drain, it's like new.

It's problem(and it's longevity) is it's weight. Unless I can get someone motivated to take it down a winding narrow staircase, it's likely to be sledge hammered into manageable chunks.

I paid two massively strong young men to haul an even larger 1898 claw foot bathtub into the upstairs of my old house. New, the simple valves and exposed supply/drain lines cost more than the fiberglass shower stall installed nearby, not to mention all the other additional work that was involved.

But the tub makes the whole bathroom and it is used often. As well as adding huge value to the old house, it will last virtually forever.

The fiberglass shower stall will likely get ripped out in a couple decades. These shower/bath stalls are great. Light, cheap, easy to plumb. Their life span - like so many house parts these days - is short.