"misty" water

Barter

Thanks to James's Dad for bringing this up, & to Keldin for the explanation, cos you've spurred me on to get those pipes lagged, which will save some money - & that's wny we're all here!

ka7e

I have a mixer tap in the kitchen which regularly produces "white" water. A conventional tap to the utility sink on the other side of the wall (same pipe), runs perfectly clear. It is just air that gets "tumbled" into the water by the mixer, but I find it releases a strong smell of chlorine as it clears. So I filter all my water, it definately tastes better and I don't get lime-scale in my kettle. Bonus!

kittiwoz

You can get rid of the chlorine in water by leaving it in a jug in the fridge overnight. The chlorine is unstable and decomposes. Cheaper than a water filter and doesn't remove minerals which are good for your health and improve the taste of the water, which a water filter does. Won't stop you having to de-scale the kettle though.

withabix

Some of the posts in this thread are misleading, so take them with a pinch of salt.

Proximity to reservoir: this is irrelevant. Proximity to a pumping station perhaps, as you are likely to receive your mains water supply at a higher pressure.

The milkiness is dissolved air being release from water at high pressure in the mains supply. It can also be exacerbated by mixer/cold taps due to the nozzles inside the heads of some of them.

Mains water can be at anything from 1 Bar (10m head of water) to 10 Bar and sometimes even higher. The instantnaneous release of pressure when the water emerges from your tap causes a sudden release of dissolved gases, hence the milkiness.

Water from your tank in the loft is normally potable (but not the central heating header tank!!). It will not produce milky water as it is gravity fed, is therefore at low pressure and will have low dissolved air content as it has come from a tank with an open surface.

The chlorine smell in your water doesn't necessarily mean that you are close to the treatment works which processed your water. The water companies add chlorine to kill off the bacteria in the water, normally after it has been dosed with aluminium sulphate (which makes the solids in the water coagulate and hence can be filtered out more easily at the treatment works) and passed through a filtration process, which may be activated carbon or coarse sand. This removes virtually all of the aluminium sulphate and the solids which have coagulated with it. Other treatment plants use membrane filtration, but only for small scale supplies.

The water is dechlorinated as the water leaves the treatment works, to reduce the residual chlorine to permitted levels by adding other chemicals.

Further chlorine is often added at pumping stations and chlorination points in the supply system to maintain bacteriological control.

The chlorine smell you often get when you turn a tap on is again the result of dissolved chlorine and the sudden release of pressure as the water comes out of your tap.

Barter

Thanks for taking the trouble to explain that iainkirk, very informative.

Just to clarify one point though; whilst obviously worth doing for money-saving & to keep the cold water cold, will lagging the hot pipes that run next to the cold stop /reduce the milkiness?

Many thanks in advance, B.

ka7e

kittiwoz wrote:

You can get rid of the chlorine in water by leaving it in a jug in the fridge overnight. The chlorine is unstable and decomposes. Cheaper than a water filter and doesn't remove minerals which are good for your health and improve the taste of the water, which a water filter does. Won't stop you having to de-scale the kettle though.

I know the water clears if left to stand, but as we're a family of 5 that drink a lot of plain H20, it's not really practical! The initial smell of chlorine is quite strong and puts us off drinking "straight from the tap". :rolleyes: