On Jun 21, 9:08 pm, Aidan wrote:
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.

I've never heard of that. Are you sure?

How could you get back-siphonage through a washing machine hose?
How could material accumulated in the hose between washes taint the
water in the whole house?
How could contamination flow backwards against the water flow to taint
the water in the tank?
How could the hose degrade sufficiently to cause the tanks to require
cleaning out every few months, without actually failing?

It sounds like utter bollox to me.
You don't sell hoses by any chance, do you?

It is probably mains contamination or possibly a cross connection to
the heating system.

I'd fit filters at the point of entry to the house.


Yes of course, suggestions of back contamination are indeed bollox. As
for fitting filters, they wouldnt filter out the bacterial slime that
we are currently experiencing. This slime is present because as I
mentioned, the water people need to flush out the nearby dead end
hydrant to clear that out. We literally have no chlorine residual at
the end of the pipeline to kill this stuff, but they are point blank
refusing to do it now... and see me as a nuisance... lol. Pricks, the
lot of them. I've been on to the Environmental Protection Agency ffs,
and they too seem powerless to convince the council to do anything.
It is a very rare problem, and one that is always dismissed. I mean, I
have never, ever, ever, experienced any mains water problems in other
places Ive lived that would make me have to constantly ring up the
local authority to complain about it! It affects absolutely everything
in the house:dirt and slime in the drinking water, the hot water
smells, the washed laundry has had a foul odor lately, the attic tank
builds up with loads of dirt and other gunk etc. What the hell do I
have to do to make these people see sense? Its a terrible state of
affairs. I'm gonna just sell up unless they do something, its that bad.