Can it be the hot water heater?

14 years ago

We remodeled a couple of years ago. We had our contractor move the hot water heater from inside the house to the attached garage.

About a year ago I started to notice on one of the new faucets that some green verdigris had begun to appear. Hmm... Other than cleaning it off, I did nothing. Eventually the green gunk reappeared. After a while I saw it on another faucet. I checked all 4 new faucets (none of them were cheap, btw) and realized they all had that green stuff.

I don't know what could be the cause. We never had this problem before and have lived here for 12 years. The only thing I can think of that affects all 4 faucets is that the water heater was moved. Could it be something in the pipes that were used in the move to the garage? Or maybe the heater needs to be drained? We're in SoCal and have very hard water, but have lived with it all these years.

I want to fix this but don't know how. Can anyone help?

Comments (3)

User
14 years ago
Well water or municipal water system?

How hard in grains is very hard water?

What is the PH of the water?

When the plumber moved the WH what was used for the piping?
oofasis
Original Author
14 years ago
Municipal water. VERY hard (SoCal) but don't know about grains or PH -- must I know these? Can I find out from water dept? I assume the plumber used copper pipes. All our work was permitted and inspected.
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User
14 years ago
"Green stuff" can occur with high PH water leaching copper from the copper pipes. With your "VERY hard" (I don't know the grains) water, over the years, a coating is deposited inside the pipes which can mitigate the leaching but it still happens.

With the WH moved and new copper pipes installed, if copper was used, for that relocation you may be seeing the leaching of the new copper pipes due to high PH water.

That's why I asked the questions...

How hard in grains is very hard water?

What is the PH of the water?

When the plumber moved the WH what was used for the piping?

... and if you want help you need to get the answers.

Your municipal water department can give you the water conditions and you need to go look at the water heater to see what pipe was used for the relocation. I can't see it from here.

You should consider getting your water tested to see if it would be prudent to treat your water.