Thank you for taking the time to comment. To the best of my knowledge, the strainers that you speak of are mostly found on industrial lines. In a commercial setting you will generally only find the strainers that you describe on the water/glycol lines that provide cooling from commercial chillers.

That being said, my questioning of whether we should be using Teflon tape at all was a little on the hyperbolic side and I did not mean for it be taken seriously. Residential water lines are constantly purging themselves through everyday use. Moreover, they can force through a lot of junk when they need to. I have seen a small pebble come through a residential system that was attached to an artesian well. I have seen large rust flakes come out of a commercial water system (don’t ask). Compared to those things, a few Teflon fibers are nothing.

More importantly, you almost never see water piped though anything other then copper or plastic in a modern residential setting. And usually the fittings are either soldered or glued depending on the material.

In so far as a I had serious point in questioning the wisdom of using Teflon tape at all, it was “Wow, Teflon tape can cause serious enough problems that people will get fired for using it. Who woulda thunk?” And “Knowing this, I would be scared to use Teflon tape on a natural gas line (because of the regulator).”

But since I would be scared to work on a natural gas line in any case, it is all a rather moot point. The real point of my blog post was “Why can’t I find good engineering data on how to properly use Teflon tape?” You would think that you would not have to depend on hearsay to form an opinion on the proper use of something that is so common.

I’m the blogger you quoted regarded the dangers of using PTFE tape in refinery process lines. While I can’t speak authoritatively regarding household plumbing standards, I know that strainers are normally installed on process lines if there’s a danger of future contamination. You can plug off the strainer after purging the line, and unplug the strainer to purge the line on a regular basis.