Earth testing?

[Timmy_T]

Hi,

We've had major problems with well water and manganese filters in an old cottage, and the water engineers have suggested that maybe the water pipes are not adequately earthed. They seem to think that the whole water system may be acting as a huge battery and causing copper from the pipes to be ingested into the water. This ends up turning my wife's hair green, turning the water blue when we add soap, no soapy suds in the washing up bowl and making the washing smell awful.

I've been around the house and cannot find one earth to a water pipe, but thats not to say that it's hidden away somewhere. How can I test that the water pipes are adequately earthed?

Is this a plausible theory or just clutching at straws?

 

[Timmy_T]

I don't know if it makes a difference, but we have a right mish-mash of copper and flexi grey plastic pipework all round the place. The main water supply is pumped in via a blue plastic pipe to a header tank in the loft, with the cold tap in the kitchen being fed directly from the pumped filtered supply. Most of the kitchen pipework is copper, but the upstairs bathroom and en suite pipework appears to be plastic.

 

[Timmy_T]

No one? Would this be better in the elec section?

 

[Weedrip]

Hi Timmy

It may be worth checking the PH of the water supply. Shallow well water can often be acidic as is the rainfall unless local ground conditions act to change it.

The acidity will make such waters cupro solvent. In other words it will attack copper and also act to de-zinctify brass fittings.

I have never heard of the earth issue you mention acting in such a fashion but we all live and learn, acidy of the water could exacerbate such an issue by more effectively acting as an electrolyte if this is in fact what is happening.

Personally I would first check and correct the PH issue before doing any thing else.

Hope that helps

 

[matt1e]

from your discription it does look as though you have copper in the water
I think it can be caused by certain bacteria attacking the copper pipe work Also
Though there are better qualified people to ask than me as to why the copper is being absorbed into the water
I would advise against introducing earth potential to your pipe work though as this can lead to a less safe electrical installation
Far better to replace the existing copper with plastic If you can
We look after a site that have two boreholes and all the pipe work from the boreholes to the filtration/chemical treatment plant then up the hill to the storage tanks and back is in plastic
There's copper pipe work in the hotel it's feeding though and no problems there though but then chlorine etc has been added by then

matt

 

[Agile]

Devon is well known for having very acid water ( from peat on the moors ).

My first expectation would be acidity in the water which would need to be neutralised.

But parallel investigation of the electrical situation could be done as well. The first question would be exactly what type of supply and earth is installed.

Then a voltage measurement between neutral and supply earth and then supply earth and natural earth.

Then could follow an accurate ( to 1 mA ) measurement of flowing earth currents!

Tony

 

[Timmy_T]

The pH is very slightly acid, at about 6.9, although the water engineer reckons a dose of soda ash in the brine tank every 8 weeks will sort that out, and we have a UV filter in the system to eliminate any bacteria.

The whole system runs: well, pump, brine tank, crystalite manganese filter, 5 micron + 1 micron filter then finally a UV filter. This is all plumbed with poly pipe to the cottage. The cottage then has a mixture of poly and copper pipe.

Would the electrical investigation be done by an electrician or a plumber? (Sorry if this sounds daft, but I'm not too sure if this is a plumbing or electrical issue!)

 

[Agile]

"brine tank, crystalite manganese filter"

Can you explain how these work?

I would have expected a calcium carbonate bed to remove the acidity?

Tony