Drinking water now tastes bad! Help!

[elle]

After plumbing in the washing machine, the drinking water on my kitchen tap now tastes completely weird and is so bad that I can't drink it or boil it.

It was fine before so I know it has to be the plumbing on the washing machine. I had a look, but being a complete novice, I'm not sure what's gone wrong.

The outlet pipe goes straight onto the spigot...do I need another valve on this?

As it's changed the taste of the drinking water I thought maybe it was the cold inlet hose - is there something else which should be attached to it so that it doesn't mix with the drinking water? There is the usual valve but I wondered if there was something else missing?

Any help much appreciated

 

[corgiman]

have to talked to the your water board??

 

[elle]

have to talked to the your water board??

Hi there, no I haven't as the water was fine up until the point I put the washing machine on. So it seems that the washing machine is the culprit as the second it was in, the cold water tasted odd.

 

[JohnD]

Did you fit a new washing machine tap or a Tee to the cold water pipe? And did you use a jointing compound on it, or solder and flux?

 

[big-all]

my thoughts here are complete coincidence as said above

i would run the water for 2 mins and check the quality if its bad ask 2 or 3 neibours

if theres is ok i would turn the washing machine water supply off at the machine run drinking water for 5 mins

did he do anything up stairs!!!!!
just wondering if your supply is actualy comming from a tank rather than the mains and the source has become poluted [crap knocked into tank]

 

[BoxBasher]

Metallic or "burnt taste"
Have you had any new copper pipe fitted? If so, might take a while to oxidise, will settle down over about a week.

Chemical taste ("TCP")
The blue hose will be filling with water and expanding under pressure. The water then reacts with the compounds in the hose material. When you open your cold tap the pipe contracts, squeezing the contents back in to mix with the rest of the water.*
Install a single check valve onto the tap that supplies your washing machine (the one the blue hose is attached to).


*This also happens to garden hoses left switched on at the tap (particularly older taps or non-compliant installations with no backflow prevention/check valve). Garden hoses are much worse as they expand far more, and react much quicker, due to the heat of the sun.

 

[elle]

Metallic or "burnt taste"
Have you had any new copper pipe fitted? If so, might take a while to oxidise, will settle down over about a week.

Chemical taste ("TCP")
The blue hose will be filling with water and expanding under pressure. The water then reacts with the compounds in the hose material. When you open your cold tap the pipe contracts, squeezing the contents back in to mix with the rest of the water.*
Install a single check valve onto the tap that supplies your washing machine (the one the blue hose is attached to).


*This also happens to garden hoses left switched on at the tap (particularly older taps or non-compliant installations with no backflow prevention/check valve). Garden hoses are much worse as they expand far more, and react much quicker, due to the heat of the sun.

Thanks for this, it's definitely not the water supply as I've turned the blue hose tap off to the washing machine and the drinking water is fine again. Both hoses were replaced when they were put in with new ones so I'm going to go and get the single check valve installed and see if that improves things.

Thanks for all the suggestions and help!

 

[Agile]

Does it solve the problem if you just turn off the hot supply to the WMC ?

Tony

 

[elle]

Does it solve the problem if you just turn off the hot supply to the WMC ?

Tony

Hi Tony, no it's only solved when the cold water supply is turned off to the washing machine.

 

[JohnD]

did you answer this?

Did you fit a new washing machine tap or a Tee to the cold water pipe? And did you use a jointing compound on it, or solder and flux?

 

[BoxBasher]

did you answer this?

Did you fit a new washing machine tap or a Tee to the cold water pipe? And did you use a jointing compound on it, or solder and flux?

I don't think the OP did, but it seems as if the problem is the cold feed hose to the W/M.

 

[JohnD]

Or the taint could be coming from flux or compound at the tap.

we don't know.

 

[elle]

Did you fit a new washing machine tap or a Tee to the cold water pipe? And did you use a jointing compound on it, or solder and flux?

Hi there, no there was no new tap or Tee and no jointing compound, solder or flux. The only thing that has changed are the hoses, but the hot water one seems fine.

I noticed that the tap for the cold water hose is missing the blue top and had to be moved with a wrench to turn valve on (and off as I've shut it off now to make the drinking water normal again). Could the missing end of the tap be the culprit??

 

[JohnD]

no.

 

[elle]

no.

oh ok, i'll try single check valve and see if that helps then.