David Jensen wrote:
I put a drinking fountain on the end of a 4' prethreaded galvanized pipe
from Home Depot. I used the galvanized so that it would stand up on its own
in the yard. The 4' galvanized pipe is fed with PVC. The water from the
drinking fountain head continues to taste oily even though I've flushed it
with several minutes of water. I'm pretty sure that the oily taste is from
oil in the pipe when I bought it at HD. I think it gets the oil in in from
cutting the threads in on each end of the pipe.

What should I do to remove the oily taste from the pipe? It seems like
disassembling it and putting some kind of bottle brush and soap would be
quite an effort. There must be better way. How would a plumber do it?

Thanks.



I replaced some pipe to my sink for the hard (drinking) water outlet,
using galvanized pipe from HD. Chinese import. The water that would
stand in the pipe overnight always, always smelled and tasted horrible.
Very strong smell & taste.

I pulled the length of pipe (2 feet, I think) and scrubbed it with a
shotgun cleaning brush and some dish soap. Rinsed thoroughly.
Reinstalled. No help.

After two months, I gave up and replaced the galvanized with PVC.

I realize the PVC isn't an option for you, but perhaps a different
source for your galvanized or iron pipe would do it. I had never had
problems like this with galvanized before.