"Dave Liquorice" wrote in message
ll.com...
On Thu, 24 Jun 2004 19:32:52 +0100, Suz wrote:

the first thing I noticed was when I went to brush my teeth the
water was stinking.

Is this tap fed from the rising main or from the tank?

Water tank


We ran the water full blast for an hour and it improved but the next
morning it was manky again.

Was niff chlorine?

no just .. well... yuk. Hard to describe.


Is there any miracle thing I could put in to dissolve the murk at
the bottom and make it like sparkly new instead of something that
could preserve oak for 10000 years?

Turn of the water, get a hose pipe join it to a length of rigid tube
(15mm copper and a hose pipe tap connector works well), shape the end
of the pipe something like:

+-----------------
|
\
\
\
+--------------

Run the hose down into the bath or loo, and stick the other end cooper
pipe end in the tank. Start a siphon(*1) running then hoover the
bottom of the tank running the champered bit of pipe on the tank
bottom, the small oping lets water flow to flush the detritus down the
siphon and stops the suction sticking the pipe to the tank base... Go
gently so as not to stire it up and you should have hoovered all the
base before the tank is empty. Finally wipe out with clean cloths and
refill, there you are nice clean tank.

Now make sure that the tank is well lagged and has close fitting lid
with no holes for stuff to get in or fall through. The tank should now
stay clean, if it doesn't the muck is in your water supply and your
drinking that no matter the source, tank or rising main.(*2)


*1: This is the hard bit, you can't (well I couldn't) suck 1/2"
hosepipe hard enough to get the siphon to run. So put copper and 6' of
hose into tank to fill it with water, hard kinked the hose underwater
to stop any back flow then pulled the hose out of the tank releasing
the kink below tank level.

*2: Birminghams water may be nice and soft from the Elan Valley but
it's filthy, presumably iron from 100 miles of 24" cast iron main...

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail


Thanks for that Dave