On May 30, 4:33 pm, Merryterry wrote:
On 30 May, 13:00, None wrote:



Hi all,

Last post from me on this subject, though a long one. I'd just like to
fully lay out the water problem in my house, and hopefully somebody,
whether a plumber or whatever, can have a clue what might be awry.
Here goes.

For many years, we have had terrible quality mains water, slimy and
containing sediment, which in turn would hasten us to clean the attic
tank every few months due to sediment at the bottom. It wasn't until
late last year that a breakthrough happened, totally by accident, when
we were having our washing machine replaced. I detached the feeder
pipe to the old washing machine and drained it at mains pressure for a
minute or so before I replaced it with the new feeder hose to the new
washing machine. Didn't think anything of it.

Suddenly, the water became much clearer and fresher than before out of
the mains tap, noticeably so. Still not really up to standard, but
much better to us at least. Within less than a week, it had gone bad
again, you know always can tell in our house as the hot water starts
to smell musty, and the cold water leaves your hands a little yellow!
So I repeated what I had done before, draining out the WM feeder pipe
at mains pressure into the sink. Same result, same cycle again.

I then had a leak detector come round, who assured us that he could
not detect a leak... more frustration. I then had our local council,
who regulate the water come round and flush the nearby hydrant. This
they did, and the water became very clear for a couple of weeks before
going back to a terrible state again.

On this group, it has been suggested to me that my house could be at a
dip in the mains or a 'balance point' where we are in the middle of
two seperate directional mains flows, each one bringing its dirt into
the house.

I still flush out my system using the washing machine method, at least
whenever it is absolutely necessary, and believe me, you know when you
have reached that point. What I cannot get my head around is why this
would be so effective (at least in the very short term), and why the
water gets so bad so quickly. If we don't have a leak, I don't know
why this works like this. The water is not supposed to be such a
problem in the general area either, the council tell me they never get
many complaints.

If anyone could shed any light on these ramblings, by all means, be my
guest.

Could be the washing machine hoses. They are notorious for tainting
water. So much so that most water companies, when they receive a
complaint such as yours tell the consumer to have a non return valve
fitted to both hoses where they exit the standard pipework. It will
not be due to leakage as the mains are pressured all the time (in
theory). Are you sure it is the council who are supplying the water?
It seems very odd to me. Most water is supplied by Water Companies.
They have a statutary duty to investigate complaints such as yours.
They will take samples and Lab Test them to ascertain the problem.

Ok, well, we're a bit further along with the problem now here. All
week I have been badgering the county council to come out and flush
the hydrant. They kept saying they would come out the next day, blah
blah... basically I found out today that they in fact wont do it
anymore. They want to send out a chemist instead to ascertain results
from the tap. This is a waste of time,as I dont trust anyone who works
with my local council and Im sure all they will look for will be
pathogens, and they probably wont find anything. Its been three weeks
since the last flush, and the water is now very slimy. Its disgusting
really. I really wish that having dead ends on mains water supplies
was illegal here, like in the US for example. Our water is stagnant
and dirty, but it wont be enough for these pricks to just connect some
pipes to the line to keep the water moving. At least in Britain, you
dont have to deal with this malarky as the water is privatised.