I just removed and reinstalled the shutoff valves under a bathroom sink and
the washers in the valve stems of the faucet itself. After doing so,
whenever I let the sink sit for a little while, like overnight, I get
rusty/yellowish water for the first few seconds after turning on the faucet.
The rust clears up after a couple of seconds, but I can't figure out why
doing what I did is causing the rust. Any ideas what I should check? The
only metal pieces that I actually replaced were the screws that held the
washers in place. Do I need to use a special screw for this, like a
stainless screw? The ones that I took out were pretty badly corroded.

MPost wrote:

I just removed and reinstalled the shutoff valves under a bathroom sink and
the washers in the valve stems of the faucet itself. After doing so,
whenever I let the sink sit for a little while, like overnight, I get
rusty/yellowish water for the first few seconds after turning on the faucet.
The rust clears up after a couple of seconds, but I can't figure out why
doing what I did is causing the rust. Any ideas what I should check? The
only metal pieces that I actually replaced were the screws that held the
washers in place. Do I need to use a special screw for this, like a
stainless screw? The ones that I took out were pretty badly corroded.

Brass would be more likely what the original were. If you used just an
ordinary steel screw it will rust and likely by the time you need to
repair again it'll be near impossible to remove...SS would work as well,
though, you're correct.

MPost wrote:

I just removed and reinstalled the shutoff valves under a bathroom sink and
the washers in the valve stems of the faucet itself. After doing so,
whenever I let the sink sit for a little while, like overnight, I get
rusty/yellowish water for the first few seconds after turning on the faucet.
The rust clears up after a couple of seconds, but I can't figure out why
doing what I did is causing the rust. Any ideas what I should check? The
only metal pieces that I actually replaced were the screws that held the
washers in place. Do I need to use a special screw for this, like a
stainless screw? The ones that I took out were pretty badly corroded.


Whenever you turn off the water supply and open a line, especially
on an older home, you disturb the rust, sediment and calcium that is
built up in the line. It takes a while for it to settle back and
stop coming out of the line.

I can't imagine what screws you are talking about, so I can't help
you there.

--
Robert Allison
Rimshot, Inc.
Georgetown, TX

You didn't tell us what kind of fresh-water piping exists in your
home...ahead of the stop valves. I concur with Robert Allison.

I have copper piping for supply lines, in a fairly old house (100+ years). I
replaced the valves and washers nearly 2 months ago, and the rust is still a
problem. The screws that I'm talking about are the screws that are used to
hold the washers into the valve stems.

Does that help to clear up the issue?

"John B" wrote in message ...
You didn't tell us what kind of fresh-water piping exists in your
home...ahead of the stop valves. I concur with Robert Allison.

MPost wrote:

I have copper piping for supply lines, in a fairly old house (100+ years). I
replaced the valves and washers nearly 2 months ago, and the rust is still a
problem. The screws that I'm talking about are the screws that are used to
hold the washers into the valve stems.

Does that help to clear up the issue?

Yeah, as I noted in previous response, if you replaced the originals
which were undoubtedly either brass or bronze w/ ordinary steel they may
well be at least part of the problem. Pulling on seat back out and
looking will answer that question faster than posting here...

If putting a new washer on is all that's been changed, it's unlikely
there's a lot of additional new rust although as noted elsewhere having
opened a system is likely to break up old sediment which will take some
time to either reattach internally or get flushed out.

Better to swap out steel screws anyway as they will eventually rust and
next time need to replace washer will be more difficult to get them out
w/o damage.

"MPost" wrote in message
...
I have copper piping for supply lines, in a fairly old house (100+ years).
I replaced the valves and washers nearly 2 months ago, and the rust is
still a problem. The screws that I'm talking about are the screws that are
used to hold the washers into the valve stems.

In my case, the rust is coming from city pipe that are 50 to 100 years old.
Whole house filter solved the problem.