Copper tubing is like copper pipe, except that tubing is soft, flexible, and easy to coil. You can never get copper pipe to do half of the things tubing does. Furthermore, there are a number of applications and uses for which copper tubing is essential. The following highlights the most common and practical uses of copper tubes.

Refrigeration

When manufacturers are making air conditioners, freezers, refrigerators, or installing auto air conditioners into vehicles, they need and use copper tubing. The tubing is able to withstand cold temperatures, it will not crack, and it is flexible enough to loop around inside these machines when space for copper pipe is just not feasible. Additionally, copper tubing keeps liquids pure and is non-toxic to humans (i.e., it will not leach into the water supply or the refrigerants, which cannot contain impurities).

Delivery of Water and Washing Dishes

In most homes water is delivered via copper pipes. These will not poison the water supply. Similarly, copper tubing is used to deliver water into a dishwasher. The water delivered is never tainted by the copper tubing, and the dishes will never retain any toxic metal residue when copper tubing is used. Because copper has very high tolerances for temperatures, it also makes it the ideal metal tubing for the delivery of extremely hot water into the dishwasher.

Distillation and Purification of Water

If you took a science class in high school or college where you learned about water purification, then you know how vital to the distillation and purification of water that copper tubing has. An experiment with desalination of sea water requires a coil of copper tubing. As the sea water is boiled in a beaker, the sea salt sinks to the bottom and crystallizes, while the actual water turns to steam and rises through the cork plug into the coil of copper tubing. Here, the steam cools and turns back into water, and eventually flows out of the opposite coiled end into a waiting cup. It is purified drinking water now.

Dehumidification

Copper tubing is also the go-to choice for dehumidifiers. It lasts significantly longer than rubber tubing, which ends up worthless and rotten in a dehumidifier that runs 24/7 in warmer, wetter months. When manufacturers use copper tubing to build dehumidifiers, they are building a product that is going to last a long time and really help consumers get their money's worth.