Perceptible Water Quality Issues. By The WQA.ORG
Perceptible Water Quality Issues
Your first diagnostic tools are your senses. You can, at times, see, taste, smell, and feel contaminated water. Water that is red, orange, yellow, brown, or cloudy can signal iron, rust, or other contaminants in the mains or your household plumbing. Tannins from decaying vegetation and leaves can also give water a yellow or brownish hue.
The main perceptible signs of water issues include:
Foul-smelling or bad-tasting water are signs of impurities. Here are common water odor or taste problems you might encounter:
A rotten-egg or sulfur smell or taste suggests the presence of hydrogen sulfide. That’s often caused by a certain type of bacteria in the water. Sulfates can also cause the water to taste salty. Investigate further to pinpoint the source, such as bacteria growing in drains, water heaters, wells, or on the inside of pipes.
Musty, earthy odors and tastes may signal dissolved solids. Such aromas and tastes may be caused by decaying organic matter in the plumbing or even in the source water itself.
Then there’s the smell and taste of chlorine. It’s there for disinfection to make water safer to drink and originates during the normal chlorination treatment process, but to enjoy the taste you may want to get rid of it.
If water smells or tastes like turpentine or other chemicals that might indicate the presence of methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) or xylenes, byproducts of gasoline refining, paints, detergents, or inks.
Metallic smells and tastes may be a sign of mercury, lead, copper, arsenic, or iron in the water. Manganese and zinc may also cause a metallic smell or taste. These chemicals may come from the pipes themselves.
Scale Deposits
Scale deposits are a typical indicator of hard water.
Hard water (or water hardness) is a common quality of water which contains dissolved compounds of calcium and magnesium and, sometimes, other divalent and trivalent metallic elements.
The term hardness was originally applied to waters that were hard to wash in, referring to the soap wasting properties of hard water. Hardness prevents soap from lathering by causing the development of an insoluble curdy precipitate in the water; hardness typically causes the buildup of hardness scale (such as seen in cooking pans). Dissolved calcium and magnesium salts are primarily responsible for most scaling in pipes and water heaters and cause numerous problems in laundry, kitchen, and bath. Hardness is usually expressed in grains per gallon (or ppm) as calcium carbonate equivalent.
What is Soft Water?
Soft water is defined by American National Standards NSF/ANSI 44 and NSF/ANSI 330 as water containing <1 grain of hardness per gallon (or <17.1 mg/L hardness).Symptoms of Hard Water include:
- Stiff, dingy laundry
- Mineral deposits on dishes and glassware
- High soap usage & need for fabric softeners
- Extra work to remove soap curd on bathtubs & shower stalls
- High energy costs, possibly due to scale build-up in pipes and on appliances
- Scale build up in sinks, tubs, faucets & appliances
Click here for national data on hard water occurrence from the U.S. Geological Survey.
Water treatment can improve hardness issues.
Scale deposits from hardness buildup affects fixtures and appliances found throughout the entire home or business. For this reason, hardness is typically addressed with treatment of water for the whole house or building rather than just at a specific faucet. Hardness minerals can be reduced in water for the whole house to make it “softer” by using one of the following means:
- Chemical softening—lime softening, hot and cold; lime-soda softening
- Membrane separation softening—Nano filtration
- Cation exchange softening—inorganic, carbonaceous, or organic base exchangers
Stains on Plumbing Fixtures
What causes discoloration on sinks, tubs, and toilets?
If the stains or water are blue-green in color, then most likely, corrosion of copper is occurring within the household plumbing. Stains that are various shades of yellow, tan, brown, black, orange, or red can indicate the presence of metals other than copper.
Two other metals that are typically to blame for staining are iron and manganese. While these minerals serve as essential nutrients for your body, they aren’t so kind to plumbing fixtures, appliances and even clothing. Reddish and yellow-tan discoloration is often caused by iron, while black or dark brown discoloration points to manganese. Due to their similarities and their frequent occurrence in tandem, iron and manganese are generally treated in much the same way.
Discoloration usually results from the exposure of these metals to oxygen, known as oxidation. In your plumbing, water often has limited exposure to oxygen, keeping any soluble (ferrous) iron or manganese in solution. Once these metals come out of a faucet and are exposed to the air, oxidation occurs and chemical reactions may cause them to form a substance that creates visible staining.
Staining may result from water with very low concentrations of these metals: 0.3 parts per million (ppm) of iron or 0.05 ppm of manganese. This is why water that leaves stains on plumbing fixtures may appear clear when coming out of the tap.
Some specific kinds of bacteria, which can cause discoloration, thrive in iron- and manganese-rich water. While these bacteria may not be harmful to the human body, they can clog pipes and affect flow rates in a home's plumbing and appliances.
Water treatment can address staining issues.
Stains resulting from metals, tannins or any other contaminant will affect fixtures and appliances found throughout the entire home or business. For this reason, contaminants causing stains are typically addressed with water treatment for the whole house or building rather than just at a specific faucet. Contaminants that stain can be reduced in water by using one of the following means:- Anion Exchange
- Activated Carbon
- Filtration
- Chlorination
- Reverse Osmosis
- Distillation
- Ozonation
Taste & Odor Issues
While taste issues are only noticed at the faucet(s) where water is used for drinking, bad smelling water can be noticeable any place in or around a home or office where water is used. Depending on the extent of faucets affected, a choice can be made whether water treatment for the whole building or just at a specific faucet is best suited for your needs.
Water treatment can improve taste and odor issues.
Contaminants that cause taste and odor issues can be reduced in water by using one or multiple options listed below:
- Activated Carbon
- Reverse Osmosis
- Air Stripping
- Oxidation/Filtration
- Disinfection/Filtration
- pH adjustments higher or lower
- Anion Exchange
- Distillation
- Electrodialysis
- Deionization
- Cation Exchange
- Ultrafiltration
- Filtration
Comments
Post a Comment