Brief bad smell from new copper water line
 

Hello,

Two weeks ago I ran new 1/2" copper type L water lines to the kitchen
sink, 30' away from the bathroom and the rest of the plumbing. Now in
the morning (after the water has been standing overnight), I get a
slug of bad smelling water from the cold water line. It starts after
running the water for maybe a minute and lasts about a minute. The
smell reminds me of burnt plumbing flux or "burnt copper".

What could be the cause of this? What comes to mind is that I
overheated one of the joints on the cold water line and some residue
is slowly leaching into the water. If so, will this go away in the
near term (a month or two), or do I need to locate the bad section and
replace it? If replacement is required, any suggestions on locating
the bad section? I could time the flow to see exactly how long until
the bad smell starts, measure the flow rate, and determine a length
away from the faucet based on the cross-sectional area of the pipe,
but I'm not sure how accurate that would be.

BTW, there's no problem from the hot water line. In case it
matters, I used hard pipe for the runs parrallel to the joists, and I
pulled soft copper 5/8" tube through 1" holes in the joists for the
perpendicular runs.

Thanks, Wayne

Brief bad smell from new copper water line
 

each day I would let the offending line run free for 15 minutes, some
flux is still in there.

it will go away in time be patient

Brief bad smell from new copper water line
 

wrote:
each day I would let the offending line run free for 15 minutes, some
flux is still in there.

it will go away in time be patient

Wayne-

I agree.............either flux or drawing lube or some other
contamination.

No need to redo the work, it will go away BTDT

cheers
Bob

Brief bad smell from new copper water line
 

On 2006-03-11, BobK207 wrote:

I agree.............either flux or drawing lube or some other
contamination. No need to redo the work, it will go away BTDT

Thanks to everyone who responded. The consensus is that it will go
away, so I'll just give it more time.

Cheers, Wayne