Copper Piping Failure

[waste]

Sherry, welcome to the forum! As I understand it, low alkalinity, in and of itself, doesn't corrode metals, it's acidic (<7.0) water that eats them up. However, the alkalinity is a buffer that keeps the pH from fluctuating too much, almost every time I've had to replace a heat exchanger (3 -4 a year) the pH was very far below my test kit's ability to read and the alk was also low if not nonexistant. The 2 do play off of each other, but it's acidic water that eats the copper heat exchangers. In every case that I've had to replace a heat exchanger, it's because the pool owner has a 'set and forget' tri-chlor feeder, and hasn't taken the time to test their water (once a week would have given them an indication that there was a problem), so they have high cl (and cya) and LOW pH, a very bad combo for metals like copper. As CarlD says 'keep ahead of your water; 2 - 5 min a day to test' - it's probably the BEST advice that is regularly seen on this forum!
I know a fair bit about pool chemistry but there are folks here that truely 'know' chemistry, I'll leave it to one of them to refute or amend what I've said.

EDIT: Evan beat me to the send button