Lone ranger
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Hi all, I'm a new member of this forum. I'm not a plumber or even much of a DIY'er I just consider myself an average homeowner. I'm pretty sure the new house we bought February 2006 has some kind of petroleum based substance in the plumbing pipes that is leeching out mainly on the hot water side of the house's plumbing system. By leeching out I mean exiting mixed in with hot water when hot water is drawn. If you run a squeaky clean vanity basin full of hot water, you get an oily substance on the surface. Enough of it to completetly cover the surface of a basin full of hot water and leave oily residue on the basin upon draining the water. By squeaky clean basin I mean wiped down with household cleaner such as 409, rinsed with cold water, dried, then rubbed down with a paper towel dampened with rubbing alcohol, and wiped finally with a paper towel dampened w/ cold water. I consider that to be clean enough for a "test" fill of hot water.
House is on city water (area pop @ 150,000).
The way I got onto this problem was routine enough: I was draining out some water from the hot water heater as part of the recommended maintenance to minimize sediment build-up. Got some air in the hot water lines. The faucet I left open 9hot side) for the tank drain procedurwe was the bath tub which has no aerator on the end of the spigot. The water drained from the tank looked okay, clear w/ a little sediment but not much. But when I restored water pressure to the tank (I had closed the inlet supply valve to the tank for the drain out) and the air began purging/belcing out the tub spigot the water was nasty-- cloudy and not from air entrapment, and had an oil slick appearance on the surface, as well as a lot of little black specks about the size of coffee grounds. The black specks smudge like tar when try to wipe them off the white tub basin and the only thing that effectively cutsr the smudge is rubbing alcohol-- household cleaner like 409 doesn't work on them. I have been told that these black specks might be a deteriorating gasket somewhere in the system or manganese, but being on a municipal water supply manganese would not be expected (?).
Going to try to make long story short, didn't intend to write a book for my first post, but having some kind of petroleum based stuff (by appearance) coming out w/ our hot water and these black pieces of who-knows-what also coming out is pretty disturbing.
I went ahead and sampled hot water from each of the fixtures in the house that has a hot water side. For each, the aerator had some of the small black specks in it when removed and inspected and again they could not be poked out of the aerator like a piece of hard water sediment or lime because they are soft and they would smudge onto the aerator (aerator = red in color, Delta faucets) so I had to clean the black tarry smudges off the aerators with a q-tip soaked in rubbing alcohol. I back drained each faucet separately (via hot water tank drain) and then re-pressurized and let air purge out with aerator removed, capturing the outflow in the basin. What was weird is out of the 6 basins in the house (double vanity, two single vanitys, kitchen sink, and tub) it was not consistent, some would have more of the oily stuff on the surface than the other basin. One, the half bath vanity basin, was downright nasty looking. I dipped a sample of this water about 10 ounces and it is currently at a testing facility pending a test (they want $166 to test it). The clean glass cup used to dip was covered in an oily residue, almost waxy to the touch after the sample was poured into a clean (new) mason jar. The cup used to dip the sample was also given to the lab. And as expected each basin had to be cleaned via rubbing with alcohol dampened paper towels afterward due to a lot of the small black specks left after the basin was allowed to drain.
House was completed May 2005, stood empty (spec house) until we bought it January 2006, moved in following month (Feb). While the house was standing vacant for sale the water was on, hot water heater was full but pilot not lit until move-in. I don't know if that matters, so I covered it here just in case.
I know from a copper elbow fitting I found in the crawl space that the plumbing sub contractor likely used the paste type flux, because the fitting has what looks (to a dumb homeowner) like petroleum jelly or something inside of it, and all the solder joints on the plumbing have a drop of a dark waxy/oily substance hanging on them which I assume is flux (?) This fitting was lying near where the water lines to the master bath turn 90 degrees up and go through the subfloor.
I don't get the oily substance floating on surface in a basin filled w/ cold water.
I guess my big questions are:
1. Is it normal and "okay" for globs of flux to be in the water pipes and is the stuff non-toxic? Doesn't seem like it would be healthy to have that stuff in your water.
2. Any ideas on what the black specks are? With the house only being two yrs old it wouldn't seem a gasket should be coming apart yet, and why would gasket rubber turn into a soft tarry substance (maybe bits are falling to bottom of heater tank and being slow cooked by the burner until they percolate out with a hot water demand?)
House is on city water (area pop @ 150,000).
The way I got onto this problem was routine enough: I was draining out some water from the hot water heater as part of the recommended maintenance to minimize sediment build-up. Got some air in the hot water lines. The faucet I left open 9hot side) for the tank drain procedurwe was the bath tub which has no aerator on the end of the spigot. The water drained from the tank looked okay, clear w/ a little sediment but not much. But when I restored water pressure to the tank (I had closed the inlet supply valve to the tank for the drain out) and the air began purging/belcing out the tub spigot the water was nasty-- cloudy and not from air entrapment, and had an oil slick appearance on the surface, as well as a lot of little black specks about the size of coffee grounds. The black specks smudge like tar when try to wipe them off the white tub basin and the only thing that effectively cutsr the smudge is rubbing alcohol-- household cleaner like 409 doesn't work on them. I have been told that these black specks might be a deteriorating gasket somewhere in the system or manganese, but being on a municipal water supply manganese would not be expected (?).
Going to try to make long story short, didn't intend to write a book for my first post, but having some kind of petroleum based stuff (by appearance) coming out w/ our hot water and these black pieces of who-knows-what also coming out is pretty disturbing.
I went ahead and sampled hot water from each of the fixtures in the house that has a hot water side. For each, the aerator had some of the small black specks in it when removed and inspected and again they could not be poked out of the aerator like a piece of hard water sediment or lime because they are soft and they would smudge onto the aerator (aerator = red in color, Delta faucets) so I had to clean the black tarry smudges off the aerators with a q-tip soaked in rubbing alcohol. I back drained each faucet separately (via hot water tank drain) and then re-pressurized and let air purge out with aerator removed, capturing the outflow in the basin. What was weird is out of the 6 basins in the house (double vanity, two single vanitys, kitchen sink, and tub) it was not consistent, some would have more of the oily stuff on the surface than the other basin. One, the half bath vanity basin, was downright nasty looking. I dipped a sample of this water about 10 ounces and it is currently at a testing facility pending a test (they want $166 to test it). The clean glass cup used to dip was covered in an oily residue, almost waxy to the touch after the sample was poured into a clean (new) mason jar. The cup used to dip the sample was also given to the lab. And as expected each basin had to be cleaned via rubbing with alcohol dampened paper towels afterward due to a lot of the small black specks left after the basin was allowed to drain.
House was completed May 2005, stood empty (spec house) until we bought it January 2006, moved in following month (Feb). While the house was standing vacant for sale the water was on, hot water heater was full but pilot not lit until move-in. I don't know if that matters, so I covered it here just in case.
I know from a copper elbow fitting I found in the crawl space that the plumbing sub contractor likely used the paste type flux, because the fitting has what looks (to a dumb homeowner) like petroleum jelly or something inside of it, and all the solder joints on the plumbing have a drop of a dark waxy/oily substance hanging on them which I assume is flux (?) This fitting was lying near where the water lines to the master bath turn 90 degrees up and go through the subfloor.
I don't get the oily substance floating on surface in a basin filled w/ cold water.
I guess my big questions are:
1. Is it normal and "okay" for globs of flux to be in the water pipes and is the stuff non-toxic? Doesn't seem like it would be healthy to have that stuff in your water.
2. Any ideas on what the black specks are? With the house only being two yrs old it wouldn't seem a gasket should be coming apart yet, and why would gasket rubber turn into a soft tarry substance (maybe bits are falling to bottom of heater tank and being slow cooked by the burner until they percolate out with a hot water demand?)
