copper in water

[Heinz]

Is there a way to reduce or remove dissolved copper in my water? The cold system is fine, but the hot has quite a lot of copper in it. Wash hands with soap in cold and the water barely changes colour, wash hands with soap in water from the hot tap and the water turns blue. As it's just the hot system and 90% of my plumbing is plastic, it's got to be the copper cylinder which is dissolving...  (The cylinder is a couple of years old, same problem with the previous cylinder) I assumed the spring water supply we have would be acidic, so bought some Litmus paper and checked it. I think it's pH 8 or 9 going by the scale on the Litmus paper book chart, so the water is alkaline. Checked the rainwater and it's exactly the same colour on the paper.
So is there anything I can do (cheaply) to reduce the amount of dissolved copper? Her indoors complains about the blue staining and green hair... 
Cheers,

Heinz

[renewablejohn]

send her "down pit"   

water will then be black  and the air blue   

[SteveH]

 Plus side is low incidence of fungal health problems... Down side is replacement of copper pipe work...

 If it's mains water. contact you're supplier. If your on a well/boar hole then it's a filter & catalyst canister job.... Get your water checked for lead & mercury...

[Ivan]

I've noticed our hot water can be rather green in colour if you run a bath (no bubblebath, obviously). It's worse when the cylinder is very hot. So if you allow your cylinder to heat up to 80 or 90C like I do when there's plenty of solar energy, you could try limiting it to 60C. The lower the temperature, the slower the reaction with the copper.

[ecogeorge]

If you got her to hold a zinc sheet and put a bit of salt in the bath water couldn't you run your lights off her ?
 

[pontiff]

This can be caused by electrolysis due to either faulty earthing or an earth leakage from a faulty appliance.....but then again you just said the pipework was plastic so maybe I'll shut up...

[Heinz]

This can be caused by electrolysis due to either faulty earthing or an earth leakage from a faulty appliance.....but then again you just said the pipework was plastic so maybe I'll shut up...

The water system is plastic, but the heating system is copper and steel, both from the same tank. How do I go about checking the earthing? And 'call an electrician' is not the answer.....  The copper heating pipes are earthed in several places as is the hot water cylinder. Fusebox has an earth leakage trip, which doesn't unless I do something silly.

Heinz

[clockmanFR]

I think i have just remembered.

In the old days to recover copper they used small ponds with water containing the copper and large iron sheets and the copper would precipitate onto the iron sheets.

Is your water supply going through any old steel/iron pipes on the way to your hot tank?. Is your suction hose pump iron, or is your water heavy with iron?

Try fitting a alloy heater element to your tank, and turn the temp down a bit?

 

[pontiff]

I think i have just remembered.

In the old days to recover copper they used small ponds with water containing the copper and large iron sheets and the copper would precipitate onto the iron sheets.

Is your water supply going through any old steel/iron pipes on the way to your hot tank?. Is your suction hose pump iron, or is your water heavy with iron?

Try fitting a alloy heater element to your tank, and turn the temp down a bit?

 

If it's only a hot water problem the the source of copper has to be the tank. Iron causes the dissolved copper to precipitate out so wouldn't that reduce the problem rather than cause it? Unfortunately your water would then turn brown as the iron dissolves!

The simplest possibility is that your water is very soft(aggressive)  and because your tank is quite new it is corroding quickly ( temperature speeds this up). Hard water deposits a thin layer of carbonate onto the surfaces and provides a protective layer.

[DonL]

I had exactly this problem when I lived on the edge of the North Yorkshire Moors. Our water came from a spring of water which had filtered through the peat and reappeared out of the ground  few hundred feet further down.
As I recall, the water was acidic, probably because of SOx arising from industrial pollution producing sulphuric acid in the water, which reacted with the copper to produce blue copper sulphate. Locals using the same water supply had replaced their copper pipe with plastic.
My solution (rather than to re-plumb the house) was to put a canister of marble chips in the supply to the house which seemed to neutralise the supply. Certainly the bathwater was no longer blue!
Don

[skyewright]

I had exactly this problem when I lived on the edge of the North Yorkshire Moors. Our water came from a spring of water which had filtered through the peat and reappeared out of the ground  few hundred feet further down.
As I recall, the water was acidic, probably because of SOx arising from industrial pollution producing sulphuric acid in the water,

No need to bring industry into the equation as peaty ground is acidic already.

We get this here. We are on mains, but the reservoir is just a small lochan less than half a mile away, fed mainly by water off the surrounding peat covered hills. Our last DHW tank only lasted around 15 years before it started to leak. I wonder if the fact that the DHW is entirely heated electrically by a normal (steel?) immersion heater exacerbates the situation?

[regen]

Heinz,
Are you sure your water is alkaline? perhaps the litmus paper is faulty?

Blue bath water was a common problem for us but our water supply is acidic PH 5.5. This means that not only copper but all the other metals like aluminium, lead,iron and a few less well known nasties will go into solution- potentially dangerous in drinking water particularly if your well supply colours at all after heavy rain.

We solved the bath water problem by putting a 250 liter barrel in the well and filling it with 10mm calcium chips and taking the feed to the house from the bottom of the barrel - cost about £20 and still working 3 years later. By raising the pH then lower quantities of the heavy metals will disolve in the water but just to be on the safe side I installed a small UV to kill bacteria followed by a reverse osmosis filter capable of about 1.5 litres per min which removes all heavy metals from water used for drinking and cooking. Cost about £200 from an aquarium stockist with an annual maint cost of about £30 for filters and membranes.  Downside it only produces about 1.5 litres per min so keep about 5 litres in jugs by kettle and refill as necessary.

Regen

[Heinz]

Are you sure your water is alkaline? perhaps the litmus paper is faulty?
Blue bath water was a common problem for us but our water supply is acidic PH 5.5.
Regen

I did wonder about the Litmus, will get some fresh stuff and see what it says... Cancel that. Will test it on some acids alkalis and see if it's reading correctly.

Heinz

[Heinz]

Limus paper seems OK, red for vinegar, red for lemon, green for bicarb....
So I'm confident the water is alkaline rather than acid. So that rules out the calcium or marble chips ?? or would they be dissolved by the alkaline water as well? I enjoyed chemistry at school, but it was so long ago....

Heinz