Hi all.

This is my first post ever here.

In short, my water is not clear. The hot water is much worse but I notice that the cold water isn't perfectly clear either. When I pour a glass of hot water it almost looks white while it settles down. When I pour cold water into a glass it is not white but I do see little particles floating around. Eventually if I leave the glass of hot or cold water alone for 5 minutes it becomes clear.

Last July 2008 I had a new water heater installed in my attic. Everything has been fine until now.

I first called the water company. They sent someone out to open up the fire hydrant next to my house apparently to get rid out the air in the lines.

Still no change in my water.

I called my neighbor to check their water. They tell me their water is clear.

I then call the plumbing company who installed my water heater. I have left message after message (I'm beginning to suspect they are putting me off until the warranty runs out on my water heater). I finally get a hold of someone who tells me that there might be turbulance in my water pipes and that the color of my water gives them the impression there is too much oxygen in my water. I am told a plumber will call me.

I wait.

I wait a few days more. Finally, I call them and demand they give me something. I am told a guy tells another guy who tells me that it might be a problem with my dip tube. Someone will call me back though. Don't bank on that.

I've research dip tubes and what they do on the net and it doesn't sound like the issue. I'm no plumber but it sounds like if my dip tube was an issue, I would not have hot water running for longer than 5 minutes or so. This is not the case.

Can anyone give me any advice?

Thanks

Have you contacted the manufacturer of the water heater and spoken to them about this problem? Possibly the plumber who installed it is not interested in the problem.

The problem is air in the lines, I am not sure what causes it to do this but I have seen it many times. The solution in my case was to wait it out and it went away.

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Originally Posted by letmetellu

The problem is air in the lines, I am not sure what causes it to do this but I have seen it many times. The solution in my case was to wait it out and it went away.

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But what if the water company has been out to my place and let the fire hydrant go off for a while. And how come my neighbor doesn't have a problem. Are you suggesting that it's only my lines which have air in them?

Thanks

Do you have a PRV,( pressure reducing valve) installed? What's your house pressure? The street pressure? Let me know. Tom

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Originally Posted by speedball1

Do you have a PRV,( pressure reducing valve) installed? What's your house pressure? The street pressure? Let me know. Tom

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I have no idea. What does it look like? Where might I find it? How would I find pressure for the street level?

Thanks:D

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Originally Posted by Bruford

I have no idea. What does it look like? Where might I find it? How would I find pressure for the street level?

Thanks:D

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Here's what a PRV Valve looks like.(see image). It's typically located where the water enters the house. You call the building Department tio ask about street main pressure and if you want to check your house pressure purchase a hose bib gage,(see image). Regards, Tom

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Originally Posted by Bruford

But what if the water company has been out to my place and let the fire hydrant go off for a while. And how come my neighbor doesn't have a problem. Are you suggesting that it's only my lines which have air in them?

Thanks

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What makes you think that you are the only person that might have air in their water lines.

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Originally Posted by speedball1

Here's what a PRV Valve looks like.(see image). It's typically located where the water enters the house. You call the building Department tio ask about street main pressure and if you want to check your house pressure purchase a hose bib gage,(see image). Regards, Tom

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OK. I just got off the phone with the water company. I told them my delima (even though they already know from the last time someone came out). They happen to mention that there was a work order on May 7th to come repair my broken fire hydrant. This is the first I've heard of this. I asked, "You know for sure it's broken?" He said yes. I asked, "Well what about the fact that my neighbor's water is clear. Could that affect just me?" He said it was possible.

I did ask about the street pressure. They say it's between 45 - 50 if that means anything to you.

Thanks for listening.

45 psi is just about perfect but the guy on the phone is just telling you what his employers claim. Do what Tom suggests and test for yourself. Most all nhot water looks a bit milky compared to cold water, at least for a few moments. If you see particles in your water, hot only, flush the heater. If there are particles in hot and cold consider a whole house filter. Today is April 23, 2009, was the May work order last year?

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I did ask about the street pressure. They say it's between 45 - 50 if that means anything to you.

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Well for one thing it tells me that it's your house pressure and that vyou don't have a PRV installed.
Do you have milky water even in the bathtub when you fill t? Try taking the aerator off the kitchen sink faucet spout. Is it still milky? Do you have a recirculating pump on your water heater? Do you have a water softener? A sprinkler system? Let's have all the details. Regards, Tom

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Originally Posted by letmetellu

What makes you think that you are the only person that might have air in their water lines.

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I don't know anything for certain. I'm just speculating since my neighbor's water is clear.

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Originally Posted by ballengerb1

Today is April 23, 2009, was the May work order last year??

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No, he means like in 14 days.

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Originally Posted by speedball1

Do you have milky water even in the bathtub when you fill t? Try taking the aerator off the kitchen sink faucet spout. Is it still milky? Do you have a recirculating pump on your water heater? Do you have a water softener? A sprinkler system? Let's have all the details. regards, Tom

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I need to look at the bathtub water again. I'm always filling it with soap so I don't know. But I do know that when this first started I tested the water from both bathroom sinks and they both had the same results as the water in my kitchen.

I don't know about a recirculating pump. I don't it.

I do not have a water softener.

And no sprinkler system.

Just a corner house made in 1992 with a fire hydrant out front. Nothing fancy. No softeners, no sprinkler systems.

Thanks

When you remove the aerator from a faucet does tha water still run milky? Tom

Consider having someone check your anode rod on the water heater. Magnesium o Aluminum anode rods have been known to cause these types of problems. The anode rods are sacrificial metal rods put into the water heater and they are a less noble metal than the steel in the glass lined water heater tank that will corrode to protect the water heater from corroding. Glass lined tanks usually have cracks in the lining or voids at the fitting connections at the tank that can accelerate the corrosion process. The corroding rods give off a gas that can cloud the water.

Also check to see it they installed "dielectric waterways" on the piping connections to the water heater. Dielectric unions are not sufficient to prevent a separation of electrical current from dissimilar metals which will accelerate the corrosion of the anode rods.

Ron George
Ron, Advertisements are not allowed on AMHD. Yours was deleted. Please go back and read the site rules. Tom

You know what, I take a little offense by you creating a screen name for yourself as Plumbing Expert. Tom, Milo, Mark and I have been around from some time to get to be rated as experts. You only have a few posts to your name so you won't lose much by creating a new account with a more appropriate name. Anything would be fine in my book that does not have the word Expert in it. This is misleading to our readers. Also never once will you see any of the actual experts try to place any ads on their posts. My 2 cents.

I'm sorry I must have offended Speedball for the attack. I suspect its because my advice was over his head. Maybe he does not use dielectric waterways.

If anything I said was wrong please specifically point out what was wrong. Please don't assume that since you have never seem me post on this website before that my advice cannot be right.

You can have 12,000 posts, bt that does not mean you know what you are talking about. For this reason, I will not be returning to this website because I have been attacked by a mr. 12 thousand posts and the web master changed my username after a post by Mr 12K.

For your information
I thought the following should qualified me as an expert on Plumbing:

31 years as a plumbing design engineer since 1978.

Graduation from a Plumbing apprentice school.

Completion of many years of plumbing and mechanical engineering training

Owning a plumbing engineering firm. That does hundred of millions of dollars in plumbing system designs each year.

Serving as Chairman of the International Residential Code Plumbing & Mechanical Code Committee.

Serving as a Member of the IAPMO Code Council that oversees the "Uniform Plumbing Code" and "Uniform Mechanical Code".

Serving as a member of the IAPMO "Answers and Analysis Committee" that answers official code questions submittted to the code body.

Serving as an expert witness since 1995 for numerous plumbing litigations cases all around the country.

Serving as technical editor and code columnist for Plumbing Engineer Magazine.

Serving as a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers A112 plumbing materials and products standard committee.

Serving as a member of the American Society of Sanitary Engineering (ASSE) Plumbing Product Standards Committee

Serving as a member of the ASSE Seal Control Board

Serving as a member of American society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) committees for Cast Iron Pipe & plastic pipe

Having served as Vice President Education for the American Society of Plumbing Engineers

I thought the above experience would qualifify me as an expert on Plumbing Systems.

What are your qualifications?

You haven't only offended me. You offended every expert on this page. You came in here expecting to be named "plumbing expert" , Oh! I'm sorry! you named yourself didn't you? The experts on this site are named by the super mods and the owner. Ya just don't walk iun here an d promote yourself..
I just read your qualifications. You're no working plumber I bet you never lifted a shovel, roughed in a job, or ran a service call in your life.

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For your information
I thought the following should qualified me as an expert on Plumbing:
31 years as a plumbing design engineer since 1978. Apprenticed in 1943, Retired in 1989 , Got ya there!!
Graduation from a Plumbing apprentice school. Wow!! That impressed me.
Completion of many years of plumbing and mechanical engineering training. I believe the operative word here is TRAINING. My guys are doers not trainees

Owning a plumbing engineering firm. That does hundred of millions of dollars in plumbing system designs each year.
Serving as Chairman of the International Residential Code Plumbing & Mechanical Code Committee.
Serving as a Member of the IAPMO Code Council that oversees the "Uniform Plumbing Code" and "Uniform Mechanical Code".
Serving as a member of the IAPMO "Answers and Analysis Committee" that answers official code questions submittted to the code body. Yeah Sport! And I bet ya didn't get your hands dirty once doing all those things.
Serving as an expert witness since 1995 for numerous plumbing litigations cases all around the country. Now that's good to know. If we ever need a plumbing lawyer you're our guy!!
Serving as technical editor and code columnist for Plumbing Engineer Magazine. Oh damm!! My subscription just ran out
Serving as a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers A112 plumbing materials and products standard committee.
Serving as a member of the American Society of Sanitary Engineering (ASSE) Plumbing Product Standards Committee
Serving as a member of the ASSE Seal Control Board
Serving as a member of American society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) committees for Cast Iron Pipe & plastic pipe
Having served as Vice President Education for the American Society of Plumbing Engineers
And all I ever joined was the VFW and the Moose
I thought the above experience would qualifify me as an expert on Plumbing Systems. And now ya know it don't mean jack here

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You just can't come in here, promote yourself to expert and then use our site as a platform to advertise your business. Who in hell do ypu think you are? We're not impressed with your degrees. Take them someplace else where there are no working plumbers to call you out. We're working plumbers here helping people with working solutions.
In your 4 or 5 posts I've had to delete one and correct another. That's not too good a average to start in on.
You ask,

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What are your qualifications?

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Click on my profile and find out or simply Google speedball1.
You've challenged me and I've responded. It's not us who are out of your league, it's you who's out of ours. And if you want to leave, don't let the door hit you in the a$$ as you walk out through it.

Ron,
Before this gets out of hand, let me explain the real issues. This site assigns a status of "expert" to people who have shown by their record here that they have the knowledge and expertise to answer questions in their area of expertise.

By selecting the name "Plumbing Expert" you presumed to take the expert handle on yourself and made it misleading to other members. Now I don't know whether this was done in innocence or not. But, either way your name was changed to a more acceptable one.

Now, I find it interesting that it was ballenger who commented on your name, yet you responded by attacking speedball. It would seem to me that, if you wanted to really contribute to this site you would have tried to assimilate rather than attack.

So, now your name has been changed, you have been apprised on the rules of this site in terms of advertising. Speedball has responded to your challenge and we are going to leave it at that. Any further issues will be dealt with.

I would like to add, that those of us who've been around awhile here, work together as a team and don't flaunt the fact of how we might have qualifications deserving of being named an "Expert".

It took me many months before I was named and Expert, and also an equal length of time before I put my qualifications in my profile. I figured that I needed to really prove myself first, before I let it be known about my qualifications concerning areas of expertise.

Thanks!

Scott brings up an great question. Whom do you think attacked you? I quess I must be Mr. 12K but I said nothing about your answers, just questioned your choice of names. If you think Tom attacked you you may be a little thin skinned, he disagreed with your answer. I think if you stay with the new name given you there could be a place for you here but that is entirely up to your.