Rusty Water on Hot Lines?

tcalo · Post by **tcalo** » Sun. Oct. 13, 2013 5:48 pm

I had a SuperStor hot water tank installed about 3 years ago. My boiler heats our domestic water and it gets stored in this tank. The problem I'm having is when I use the diverter on our bathtub to switch from the shower head to the spout we start to get rusty water coming out. We only use our tub spout every few days when giving our little girl a bath. The water seems to affect the toilet and washing machine as well, which is in close proximity. After a flush or two the toilet clears up, my guess is because it is so close to the bathtub diverter valve. Maybe there is crud getting caught at the spout? As far as the washing machine goes I only get rusty water when using hot water, when I switch to cold water it is crystal clear. I'm puzzled because it doesn't happen all the time, only when we switch the diverter on the tub?

Didn't want to start another thread on this. We rarely use our baseboard heat, we mainly heat using our coal stove. Could I potentially damage the heating system by not circulating the water in the pipes? We use our oil burner for hot water, but rarly heat with it.

SMITTY · Post by **SMITTY** » Sun. Oct. 13, 2013 5:55 pm

I had that problem when a PILE of crud .. and I mean a PILE ... traveled through all the lines to each appliance. I ended up disconnecting both washing machine lines and letting them run full tilt into a 5 gallon bucket. Haven't had a problem since. No idea where all of that came from - was chunks of rusty metal & brown, heavy sediment. It somehow got into the lines & started plugging up everything. When I was done, the bottom of that 5 gallon bucket was packed solid, 5" deep. I couldn't believe the amount of crap that came out of there.

I had a shady crew here that year installing a well pump, so that may have been another part of their sabotage to get more money out of us. They tampered with my pressure settings and let all the air out of the bladder on the tank too, so wouldn't surprise me ..

tcalo · Post by **tcalo** » Sun. Oct. 13, 2013 6:00 pm

I have a filter on the water main into the house. Seems to be doing a good job. Just the hot side...

freetown fred · Post by **freetown fred** » Sun. Oct. 13, 2013 6:05 pm

When's the last time you drained your HW tank--I did mine after 3 yrs for the same reason & what a mess of crap/rust came out. She's good now--they suggest draining every 6 mos with harder water

tcalo · Post by **tcalo** » Sun. Oct. 13, 2013 6:12 pm

freetown fred wrote:When's the last time you drained your HW tank--I did mine after 3 yrs for the same reason & what a mess of crap/rust came out. She's good now--they suggest draining every 6 mos with harder water

Good to know. It's about 3 years old and I never drained it. Guess I'll start with that. Thanks!

SMITTY · Post by **SMITTY** » Sun. Oct. 13, 2013 6:14 pm

Yeah drain it, then let it blast from the farthest side of the house into a bucket ... or into a garden house run outside .. or whatever, to flush the lines out. That's how I got all the crap out of mine. If you can, might want to bypass that sediment filter before flushing just to get max pressure.

Just FYI, I have filters too. That's why I say I have no idea how all that crud got in my pipes ... but it did.

tcalo · Post by **tcalo** » Sun. Oct. 13, 2013 6:20 pm

SMITTY wrote:Just FYI, I have filters too. That's why I say I have no idea how all that crud got in my pipes ... but it did.

Gotta love our local water supplier...

I just had them at my house 2 weeks ago testing the chlorine levels. It's so strong it makes my eyes tear. Got the letter back stating it's within acceptable limits...