Sand

RayH

I have a customer on city water and a 12yr old hot water heater. He had very low water pressure at the kitchen sink. All other fixtures are fine. I disconnected the hot and cold supply lines and flushed the lines into a bucket. The cold line was clear. The hot side came out rusty brown and a bad water hammer. It eventually turned a light orange color with a lot of sand. I flushed the water heater twice and NO sand or calcium or orange water at all. Went back to the kitchen sink and the same thing. Rusty water and lots of sand??? I'm planning on changing the water heater. Where's the orange water and sand coming from???

Jamie Hall

older house? At least two possibilities, if so -- but the most likely is that somewhere in the water lines to that sink there is some galvanized piping. That would certainly account for the rusty water, and the low pressure, as galvanized rusts like mad and closes down the waterway. The rust could also be the sand -- that is, you could be seeing fine rust particles which are gritty, if nothing else. If it's genuine sand, though -- think beach -- you may have to also look to see if there was an old hot water boiler hooked in somewhere -- but that would be odd, and likely only in a really older house.

RayH

Jaime, the house has 3/8" copper supply line in Florida. No galvanized pipe. No boilers down here 😄

retiredguy

If the kitchen sink has shutoff valves just before the faucets, the valves could be partially plugged with debris from the water supply. My neighbor had this same problem and had the kitchen faucet changed by a local plumber. The low flow remained until he and I replaced the aforementioned valves.

Derheatmeister

Well or City water ? Sulfur smell ?
Maybe time for a whole house filter..

ChrisJ

RayH said:

Jaime, the house has 3/8" copper supply line in Florida. No galvanized pipe. No boilers down here 😄

Well.
The rust and sand isn't being manufactured by 3/8" copper pipe.

And you say there's absolutely nothing in the water heater. So, it's coming from somewhere or being stored somewhere. Are you 100% sure there's absolutely nothing but a length of 3/8" copper pipe between the faucet and heater?

Jamie Hall

ChrisJ said:

RayH said:

Jaime, the house has 3/8" copper supply line in Florida. No galvanized pipe. No boilers down here 😄

Well.
The rust and sand isn't being manufactured by 3/8" copper pipe.

And you say there's absolutely nothing in the water heater. So, it's coming from somewhere or being stored somewhere. Are you 100% sure there's absolutely nothing but a length of 3/8" copper pipe between the faucet and heater?

Indeed. It's not appearing by magic, and if it's only at one faucet which you seem to indicate, it's not the water supply. I should have said hot water heater; up here in the frozen north a surprising number of older houses had and have a fuel fired hot water heater; in older houses it was a small applicance on the hot water line only for one faucet: the kitchen, and was usually called a boiler or geyser. And was galvanised steel, usually.

Anyway, that's neither here not there -- but somewhere between the last T and that faucet there is a problem.

ChrisJ

Jamie Hall said:

ChrisJ said:

RayH said:

Jaime, the house has 3/8" copper supply line in Florida. No galvanized pipe. No boilers down here 😄

Well.
The rust and sand isn't being manufactured by 3/8" copper pipe.

And you say there's absolutely nothing in the water heater. So, it's coming from somewhere or being stored somewhere. Are you 100% sure there's absolutely nothing but a length of 3/8" copper pipe between the faucet and heater?

Indeed. It's not appearing by magic, and if it's only at one faucet which you seem to indicate, it's not the water supply. I should have said hot water heater; up here in the frozen north a surprising number of older houses had and have a fuel fired hot water heater; in older houses it was a small applicance on the hot water line only for one faucet: the kitchen, and was usually called a boiler or geyser. And was galvanised steel, usually.

Anyway, that's neither here not there -- but somewhere between the last T and that faucet there is a problem.

Insinkerator hot water dispenser?
Point of use tank heater under sink or crawl space etc?

Beamed down from Mr Scott?

hot_rod

Its not so easy to flush heavy sediment from a water heater, you need a wand or a muck vac to lift it out. The silica comes in with the water from the supply source. A sediment filter on the incoming line will prevent further debris.

12 years is getting up there on a WH, could be several inches of sediment in the tank.
You'll know when you remove it !

leonz

RayH said:

I have a customer on city water and a 12yr old hot water heater. He had very low water pressure at the kitchen sink. All other fixtures are fine. I disconnected the hot and cold supply lines and flushed the lines into a bucket. The cold line was clear. The hot side came out rusty brown and a bad water hammer. It eventually turned a light orange color with a lot of sand. I flushed the water heater twice and NO sand or calcium or orange water at all. Went back to the kitchen sink and the same thing. Rusty water and lots of sand??? I'm planning on changing the water heater. Where's the orange water and sand coming from???

================================================================

They apparently do not flush the fire hydrants and the water supply lines very often.

How often do they clean the screens in their faucets and let the water flush through them?

Do they ever drain the water out of the base of the water heater to clear sediment?

If they do not have a large whole house filter after the water meter or a pair of them piped in parallel to allow changing one filter while the other one is still working.

HomerJSmith

I'm in doubt that you have 3/8" piping in that house. Some faucets have a check valve in the faucet and some have volume restrictors. Some times an angle stop will reduce flow because the rubber seal has disintegrated and parts of the rubber have plugged up the faucet or supply lines. All of the fore going can account for a low flow. It happens with hot more than cold.
Sometimes what we think is rusty water is really copper pipe that wear and the resulting debris which is brown will be mistaken for rust and it happens more in hot water lines.
You can test the sand and rust with a magnet to determine whether it is ferrous in nature.
Do the other faucets in the house have the same problem?

Larry Weingarten

Hi @RayH , A few more thoughts/questions. Is there a recirculation line? If so, a bad check valve could allow sediment backwards through that line to the fixture. Also, copper can produce a rust colored water with high flow that scrubs the film of stagnant water from the pipe walls. I wouldn't drink that stuff! Finally, there is a trick you can use to backflush the hot line using the cold water at the fixture. This will push debris back into the tank from the pipes.

Yours, Larry

jumper

Derheatmeister said:

Well or City water ? Sulfur smell ?
Maybe time for a whole house filter..

Always a good idea. I read about cities with bad water and I don't understand why each customer doesn't do herself a service with this relatively simple improvement.

ChrisJ

jumper said:

Derheatmeister said:

Well or City water ? Sulfur smell ?
Maybe time for a whole house filter..

Always a good idea. I read about cities with bad water and I don't understand why each customer doesn't do herself a service with this relatively simple improvement.

I did a heavy bronze wye strainer with an 80 mesh screen inside of a 20 mesh screen.
My reasoning was the incoming pressure is 80-90 PSI and I wanted to protect the PRV as much as anything else in the system. In my situation if it makes it through the 80 mesh, it's not going to harm anything.

PC7060

3/8” copper seems awfully small for house supply.  

Alan (California Radiant) Forbes

Derheatmeister said:

Well or City water ? Sulfur smell ?
Maybe time for a whole house filter..

When they do work in the street, it causes debris in the main to let go and migrate. Out here, we get a lot of sand in toilet tanks.

Mad Dog_2

Recent water main repair.  Some big, old  Bldgs in NYC have Big brass wye strainers to catch this drek.  Some still have the Fish traps too!   We used to service the Original Hurley's Saloon location which stood since the 1870s I think...This was one black from Radio City Music Hall.  I remember in the 1980s, an apartment building in Manhattan had very low water pressure.  They finally took apart the service line and there was a live 2 foot Channel Catfish blocking the pipe.  All of NYC is fed from Upstate reservoirs.  Mad Dog

reggi

Mad Dog_2 said: <snip>They finally took apart the service line and there was a live 2 foot Channel Catfish blocking the pipe.  All of NYC is fed from Upstate reservoirs.  Mad Dog

Lol...came across a old newspaper article from around the turn of the century from Scranton about a  $25 Trout ... pretty much like your catfish... that $25 is what the cost of digging up the pipe and finding the block and repairs..

EdTheHeaterMan

As the HVACR Tech support guy at a local supply house for 2 years, I came across many more problems than just my own customers. One plumber came to me with a similar problem. It was not low pressure at one faucet, it was brown water at one faucet. The tap was located on a large whirlpool tub in the bathroom. Every other tub and basin in the place had no problem. Only this one hot water faucet would have a brown color when filling the tub. He brought me samples of water to send out for testing but when he found out how much the lab wanted to charge for the test, he put a hold on the testing. The customer was not going to pay the final bill unless the discolored water problem was solved. After 2 months of checking everything he could, He finally found a black bushing connected to the inlet of the hot side of the tub faucet. just one small 1-1/4" x 1" black bushing on the faucet inlet was causing the discoloration.

He replaced the rusted out bushing with a brass bushing and the problem was solved. Just one small fitting caused discoloration. ...so what you are looking for may not be that big. it is hiding in there somewhere. It could be a nail or screw that fell into the pipe and is rusting away as we speak.

Mr. Ed