Green hair. Well Water turning Wife's Hair Green

[TrevorLS]

Hello helpful people,

I have a situation that is not sitting well with the wife. Her blonde hair is turning green/blue after about 2 months.

Background: Problem was really bad when we first moved into house that is on well water. Installed water softener and it got better (it used to turn it green in about a month). Eventually it is still turning it blue after about 2 months.

Setup:

• Well head into pressure tank (Copper Piping)
• Pressure tank into Sediment Filter (~150 ft Copper Piping I believe)
• Sediment Filter into Water Softener (Ptex)
• Water Softener into UV filter (Ptex)
• UV filter to house (Copper Piping)

Water Tests:

• Hardness
  • Pre Softener = 18.1 gpg
  • Post Softener = ~1
• pH
  • Pre Softener = 6.5
  • Post Softener = TBD (waiting for test kit)

Possible Causes:

• Low pH is corrosive to copper piping pulling out the blue hue?
  • If this is the case, someone suggested installing a Soda Ash System in the well pit before the pressure tank. This way pH will be treated before reaching any copper pipes.
  • Can this blue hue be filtered out any way instead of lowering pH?
• Mineral build up in Hot Water Heater?
• Any other thoughts?

Do any of you have any experience taking care the this problem?

Thank you all for your suggestions.

 

[Valveman]

If it is low enough ph to eat away at the copper, you don't want that for other reasons as well. I will move this to the softener forum where a few more might see it.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Mikey]

I agree (but I'm no pro in this area) that the ultimate solution is to condition the water so as not to dissolve the copper. Even then, there might be a period during which the copper pipes take a while to lose built-up layers of oxides or other salts that make the hair turn green. There are lots of other solutions posted on many websites and blogs, some of which are kind of funny if you don't have the problem - like washing your hair thoroughly with ketchup. One woman just changed her hair color. But as valveman implied, your blonde hair is a canary-in-the-coal-mine indicator of much worse problems and deserves immediate attention.

 

[ditttohead]

While generically saying low pH is the cause... in this case it is likely the cause. A softener removes copper from the water which you likely have naturally occurring but you can also add more with your existing plumbing due to corrossivity issues. There are many solutions to this issue, it really depends on how much you want to spend, and how simple you want maintenance to be. I prefer a polyphosphate injection system, this may not raise the pH but it will typically greatly reduce the problem with minimal maintenance and a very reasonable cost. If you stick with high end components this is a simple long term solution. If you go for the cheap online systems you will typically have considerably higher maintenance but a slightly lower initial cost. Another solution is a simple Calcite backwashing system ahead of the softener. This will raise the pH but will also raise the hardness even further thereby adding salt consumption into the equation. This is also a cheap and simple solution. Last common option is a simple pH correcting injection system with added polyphosphate. This is the best solution but adds a little additional maintenance as your pH adjusting solution needs to be refreshed regularly.

 

[TrevorLS]

Thank you for the options @dittohead. I will do some research into the polyphosphate injection option you listed.

 

[SuperGreg]

I had 6.5 pH well water as well, and had lots of blue staining in the shower. I installed a back washing calcite neutralizer and have had no issues with staining any more. Now I need to add a softener though.

 

[ditttohead]

Calcite is a simple, effective and low cost solution but... The increased hardness can be problematic. Even with a softener, the added hardness causes considerable inefficiencies... Commercially we rarely fix low pH with calcite, we lean on polyphosphate. Residentially it is a bit more expensive for the intial equipment but the maintenance and settings are much simple and more consistent.

 

[GTOwagon]

I was going to say to have her dye her hair red if she wants to end up with purple hair. That is probably the extent of my ability to offer a solution or suggestion in this here matter.