LFCraig
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Hi,
I hope I'm posting this in the right forum.
My husband and I moved into out house 6 months ago. The house is 60 years old, with a well and septic system. The pipes are a mix of copper and pvc. All the hot water pipes are copper. The cold are a mix.
The previous owners had a potassium permanganate softener, which didn't seem to be working when we moved in. The dishwasher (which we replaced) had rust stains in it and the shower had both red and black staining. We had our water tested, though I am not sure of the exact results, but it was hard and we had sulfur and iron present. In February, when we moved in, we removed the old softener and had an iron breaker 3 and clack water softener installed, along with an RO system under our kitchen sink.
Everything was working great - no odor, no staining (in fact, the stains on the shower doors that I couldn't scrub off are slowly disappearing!), soft water etc. - until April when something (I'm told it was a large chunk of sediment??) broke a valve on the iron breaker, preventing it from working properly. Whatever it was prevented the air bubble from staying - it would form, but then disappear after a couple hours. During that time our water smelled and had small black chunks in it. The guy who installed our system came out to replace the part and also diagnosed the grey slime I had noticed building up in our toilet bowls and tanks as iron bacteria. He suggested we disinfect the iron breaker by introducing chlorine once a month, during the regen cycle. We have been doing this since April. He also disinfected our softener and RO by introducing bleach into those as well.
Fast forward to today. Our water is still odor and stain free, but the slime continues to build up in the toilet tanks. The tanks are filled with hundreds of small bubbles trapped on the surface and there is black, slimey build up on the internal bits. I have rinsed the tanks with vinegar and hydrogen peroxide on separate occasions (letting it sit overnight). This seems to solve the problem for a few weeks, but then it returns. I am hesitant to use bleach because of the septic system.
I was somewhat content to just keep doing this, until recently, when we replaced the hot water tank. Following this there was a huge amount of black/grey sediment expelled from our pipes - mainly the hot water, but also present in the cold water. I removed all the aerators and this stuff is continuing to come out weeks later. There has also been an increase in the slime buildup in the toilets. We have a sediment filter before the hot water tank, which we just changed last week, and it is slowly filling up with black chunks and clear filmy stuff.
I have spoken to the guy who installed our system, but he seems in over his head on this one.
So - 2 questions:
How do we get all this crap out of our pipes? Is it possible that this is stuff getting through the iron breaker, or is it sediment that was stuck in our pipes and now breaking loose? I should also maybe mention that we switched from regular softening salt to the rust removing kind and that the previous hot water tank was filled with white sediment.
How do I get rid of whatever is growing in my toilets? Is there a way to determine what it is? Since we are bleaching the iron breaker, could iron bacteria be stuck in my pipes AFTER the iron breaker?
OK, I guess that's more than 2 questions
Any help or thoughts would be greatly appreciated. I have been reading about flushing our pipes with various things: weak acids, strong acids, hydrogen peroxide, bleach, compressed air + water, but everyone seems to have differing opinions about what works, making things very confusing!
Thanks!
I hope I'm posting this in the right forum.
My husband and I moved into out house 6 months ago. The house is 60 years old, with a well and septic system. The pipes are a mix of copper and pvc. All the hot water pipes are copper. The cold are a mix.
The previous owners had a potassium permanganate softener, which didn't seem to be working when we moved in. The dishwasher (which we replaced) had rust stains in it and the shower had both red and black staining. We had our water tested, though I am not sure of the exact results, but it was hard and we had sulfur and iron present. In February, when we moved in, we removed the old softener and had an iron breaker 3 and clack water softener installed, along with an RO system under our kitchen sink.
Everything was working great - no odor, no staining (in fact, the stains on the shower doors that I couldn't scrub off are slowly disappearing!), soft water etc. - until April when something (I'm told it was a large chunk of sediment??) broke a valve on the iron breaker, preventing it from working properly. Whatever it was prevented the air bubble from staying - it would form, but then disappear after a couple hours. During that time our water smelled and had small black chunks in it. The guy who installed our system came out to replace the part and also diagnosed the grey slime I had noticed building up in our toilet bowls and tanks as iron bacteria. He suggested we disinfect the iron breaker by introducing chlorine once a month, during the regen cycle. We have been doing this since April. He also disinfected our softener and RO by introducing bleach into those as well.
Fast forward to today. Our water is still odor and stain free, but the slime continues to build up in the toilet tanks. The tanks are filled with hundreds of small bubbles trapped on the surface and there is black, slimey build up on the internal bits. I have rinsed the tanks with vinegar and hydrogen peroxide on separate occasions (letting it sit overnight). This seems to solve the problem for a few weeks, but then it returns. I am hesitant to use bleach because of the septic system.
I was somewhat content to just keep doing this, until recently, when we replaced the hot water tank. Following this there was a huge amount of black/grey sediment expelled from our pipes - mainly the hot water, but also present in the cold water. I removed all the aerators and this stuff is continuing to come out weeks later. There has also been an increase in the slime buildup in the toilets. We have a sediment filter before the hot water tank, which we just changed last week, and it is slowly filling up with black chunks and clear filmy stuff.
I have spoken to the guy who installed our system, but he seems in over his head on this one.
So - 2 questions:
How do we get all this crap out of our pipes? Is it possible that this is stuff getting through the iron breaker, or is it sediment that was stuck in our pipes and now breaking loose? I should also maybe mention that we switched from regular softening salt to the rust removing kind and that the previous hot water tank was filled with white sediment.
How do I get rid of whatever is growing in my toilets? Is there a way to determine what it is? Since we are bleaching the iron breaker, could iron bacteria be stuck in my pipes AFTER the iron breaker?
OK, I guess that's more than 2 questions
Any help or thoughts would be greatly appreciated. I have been reading about flushing our pipes with various things: weak acids, strong acids, hydrogen peroxide, bleach, compressed air + water, but everyone seems to have differing opinions about what works, making things very confusing!
Thanks!
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