The Truth of Water – Answers

• 02Nov

  Black Guck from Bathroom Drains

  disinfection, microorganisms, sewage 2 Comments

  Diane from Orillia, Ontario writes:

  I keep cleaning out black guck from the top of the drainpipe in the bathroom sink, also around the lip of the drain in the bathtub.  I have noticed this for about 8 months (about the time I switched from regular cleaning products to environmentally safe ones).  My house is about 60 years old. Do you know what would cause this?

  Hi Diane, thanks for the question.

  My house is about the same age as yours, and I have had a similar problem with my bathroom drains.  What you are experiencing is a buildup of what’s known as biofilm.

  In essance, you have bacterial colonies growing on the inside of your pipes.  As bacteria grow, they produce a slime or guck as you describe it.  The slime contains the bacteria as well as all of the secretions that the bacteria produce.

  Bacterial biofilm grows in a similar fashion to sea coral.  It will grow out and up to take every viable surface area it can.  it also grows on top of itself getting thicker as time goes on.

  Since your house was built in the 50′s, you most likely have galvanized steel drainpipes.  These drainpipes contain iron, and allow iron reducing bacteria to grow under optimal conditions.  Iron reducing bacteria are especially adept at forming biofilm, and can grow quickly.

  As well, other guck, crud and objects can add to the growth of this biofilm. Hair tends to get trapped in bathroom plumbing aiding the biofilms growth.  Another issue is shaving cream, which forms a sticky foam in drainpipes, that the bacteria love.  Think of this hair and shaving cream as condominiums for bacteria, giving them more surface area to procreate in, as well as other nutrients.

  It is likely that your previous cleaning products contained bleach, harsh acids and the like keeping your pipes clean by keeping the biofilm at bay.  When you switched to greener cleaning products, they no longer disinfected your plumbing and allowed uncontrolled biofilm growth.

  There are several ways to deal with this problem.  If you plan to do some plumbing in the near future, it would be a good idea to replace your galvanized drain lines with ABS plastic lines.  This would eliminate the iron reducing bacteria as there would be no iron for them to feed on.

  To deal with the biofilm in the plumbing you have now, you must do two things:

  1. Physically reduce the amount of biofilm and hair/shaving cream etc. in your plumbing
  2. Disinfect the plumbing to keep the biofilm from spreading.

  Look under your sink.  Most sinks have what’s known as a p-trap underneath them. It’s a gooseneck assembly designed to keep water trapped in the pipe so sewer gas cannot escape into your house. Many have a clean out assembly in the bottom. If not, the assembly usually has screw off unions so you can remove the whole thing. When you do this be careful, there will be water that will come out of there.

  Your local hardware store will have what’s called a plumbing snake.  It’s a coiled up wire with a screw like device on the end, and a handle so you can turn it.  You can use that to clean out much of the guck from your drain lines.  Make suer you have a bucket underneath, when you pull it back it will bring black guck, hair etc. back with it.

  Next, you need to disinfect the plumbing.  Put the p-trap back together.   Take a cup of bleach and mix it with a bucket of warm water. Pour this slowly down the drain.  This will kill the surface bacteria, stopping it’s ability to reform the biofilm.  A weak chlorine solution should not harm the septic system as it will react with the biofilm and galvanized pipe and should be used up before it gets to far in.  Just make sure it’s a dilute solution, as straight bleach can harm a sewer/septic system.

  That should stop the black guck from reforming. Make sure you disinfect your drain lines at regular intervals.  As disinfectants can only kill surface bacteria, the bacteria underneath the biofilm will work their way to the top in a few weeks.

  I hope I’ve been of help. Please do not hesitate to write in again should you need further clarification or have more questions.

  

  Tags: bathroom, biofilm, disinfecting, drain lines, gunk, sewage

• 31Oct

  Water Treatment Project

  Other, disinfection 4 Comments

  Diana from Hawaii writes:

  Hi! I’m a student from maui high school. I’m having a research for my Chemistry class and my topic is about water treatment. I’m just wondering if you can give me some facts abput it and i also need to do a poster and I’m not really sure what to do.. pls give me ideas/facts.

  Thank you for your question!

  If your topic is about water treatment and it’s for chemistry class, perhaps you can do your topic on chlorine.  Chlorine is the most common water treatment chemical in use today.

  Here are some ideas for you. Click on the points to be taken to another website with some information. This is just a starting point, you may want to do some further research on your own.

  • The history of chlorine, why it was first used and where.
  • The types of chlorine used: Anhydrous Chlorine (Cl2), liquid sodium hypochlorite, dry calcium hypochlorite
  • What happens when you add chlorine to water: The disassociation process between hypochlorus acid (HOCl) and the hypochlorite ion (OCl-), and include the pH Disassociation curve
  • The difference between the states of chlorine: Free, combined, and total
  • Breakpoint chlorination: what happens when you add chlorine to water.  Google breakpoint chlorination and you’ll find LOTS of good stuff.
  • The difference between primary and secondary chlorination.

  I hope I’ve given you a good idea, and get busy googling!  Let me know if you need any further help or ideas.  And I will email you when your answer is up on the site if you would like to refer to it more.

  

  Tags: chlorine, hawaii, learning, project

• 28Oct

  Water Treatment For a Well in Michigan

  Drinking Water, Filtration, disinfection 1 Comment

  Recently, Anna from Michigan wrote into The Truth of Water asking several questions.  She has recently moved from Poland to Michigan, and purchased a house with well water.  Our correspondence is long so I’ll break down her questions below and answer them in turn.

  1. Anna has a water softener, and has heard that it can be bad for your health. Is this true?
  2. Where to get your water tested, and how often?
  3. There is a smell coming from the water. As well, rusty stains are developing on her water fixtures
  4. She wants to disinfect her water using U.V. to ensure it is safe to drink, and would like a recommendation on a U.V. unit.

  Anna, thank you for writing in and I’ll try to help you as best I can.

  Question 1 – Is water softener water bad for your health?

  Water softeners add sodium to your water in the same proportion that they remove hardness. Sodium in excessive amounts can be bad for your heart and blood pressure. Your best bet is to plumb a special line of non softened water to your kitchen sink and use that water only for drinking and cooking. This way you’ll be able to benefit from sodium free water for your health, and softened water for your cleaning activities.

  Question 2 – Where to get your water tested, and how often?

  It is best to find an Environmental laboratory closest to you.  Some samples are time sensitive so the sooner you get it to the lab, the better.  As I live in Ontario, the laboratories I am close to are too far away to be of use to yourself. However, I have found a Michigan association of Environmental laboratories.  You can find them at http://www.michlabs.org/. Please write into them and explain your situation, and that you need to do some well water testing. They will be able to recommend a lab close to you. Most laboratories have a well water testing suite custom tailored to the problems specific to the area.  When you do find a laboratory, please make sure that they can test for ultra violet transmittance.  This is usually a very inexpensive test but it is necessary to properly size a U.V. treatment device, as I will explain below.  Generally most home owners will get their water tested 4 times per year, once quarterly.  As you progress in your testing and find some contaminants commonly not existing in your water supply, you can start reducing the frequency of testing or eliminate it. You should ALWAYS test for bacteria in your water, as that is the most acute problem you may face and can come up at any time.

  Question 3 – Smell and Rust in the well water

  Many times, well water can contain sulphur reducing bacteria and produce hydrogen sulphide, which will make your water smell like rotten eggs. If this is not the case, I do understand that Michigan groundwater can sometimes be contaminated with methane, which will cause a smell. If your water does not smell like rotten eggs, it is most likely methane.  The company I will recommend below will be able to help you with this.  The rust in your water is from iron, which can come from your well water and/or your iron well casing.  To treat this, you need to oxidize with either air or an oxidizing agent and filter it out.  The below company I will mention will also have experience with this.

  Question 4 – U.V. system recommendation

  One of the most important treatment devices you will own is your U.V. system, simply because it will kill or inactivate any microorganisms like bacteria, virus’s and protozoa, which can be common to some ground water supplies.  It is very important to properly size your U.V. system.  Just as car companies must not under size an engine for their car, if you under size a U.V. system it will not deliver an effective dose.  The US EPA, AWWA, NSF and various other water specialists recognize that the lowest safe dose for U.V. to produce safe water is 40 mj/cm2.  In order to achieve this, you must achieve these factors:

  1. Know your maximum flow rate. The higher the flow rate the lower the U.V. dose will be.
  2. The U.V. transmittance of your water, or how much U.V. light can penetrate your water
  3. The strength of your lamps at all times, as lamp strength degrades over time.

  I work for a small muncipality, and have installed about twenty small U.V. treatment systems. After careful consideration, I purchased all of them from a company called U.V. Pure.  The reasons I did this was simple. U.V. pure took all three factors above into consideration.  Through independent third party testing, they have proven a minimum effective dose of 40 mj/cm2 at the end of lamp life, at a maximum flow rate (which they set with a flow restrictor), and with a U.V. Transmittance of 75%.  If the lamp output failed, or if the U.V. transmittance dropped below 75%, the unit shut off a valve and sent out an alarm, ensuring that you either get safe drinking water or you do not.

  U.V. Pure offers a home unit which is independently verified by a third party company to produce this. They test using live bacteria and ensure all are dead on the other side of the system. Indeed, I have my own performance data showing E.coli bacteria on the raw water side of one of my systems and clean, bacteria free water on the other.

  Where to get water treatment?

  I contacted U.V. Pure to find the closest distributor to you.  They lead me to a company called Clear Water Systems in Brighton, Michigan which I believe is close to you.  As an added bonus, this company also carries Kinetico Water filters, which I have direct and positive experiences with.  Kinetico has filtration options that can take care of any iron, sediment, or methane in your water.

  Make sure that if you visit Clear Water systems, you take the results of your well water tests with you. This will help them choose a system to best take care of your needs.

  You can contact Clear Water Systems at the following:

  Clear Water Systems (Kinetico)

  10008 E. Grand River

  Brighton, MI 48116

  Phone: 810.632.7880

  Email:sales@clearwatersystems.com

  Website: www.clearwatersystems.com

  To recap: To help solve your problems, use the website I gave you in question 2 to find a local drinking water lab.  Take that information to your local clear water systems dealer, so he can help you with treatment for your iron and stinky water problem, and a properly sized U.V. Pure U.V. system to make sure your water is safe to drink.

  I hope I’ve helped you out today. Please let me know if you need any further information or clarifications.  Also, I would be very interested to see how you make out in your endeavors!

  

  Tags: disinfection, Filtration, softener, u.v. pure, water treatment

• 15Oct

  The Multi Barrier Water Treatment Approach

  Drinking Water, Filtration, disinfection 1 Comment

  Water treatment is a much studied and sought after practice. Sanitary engineers are always finding new technologies, new, more efficient and better ways to treat and convey water from source to your tap.  One thing that hasn’t changed since it’s inception into accepted practices is the multi barrier treatment approach.

  The multi barrier approach is a simple one.  It means that instead of relying on one treatment technology or method to treat water, you rely on several steps.

  The more steps you have in treating your water, the less likely there is for a source of contamination to get through to the customer.  It’s like locking your storm door and your front door: If a burglar manages to break the lock on the storm door he now has to deal with the dead bolt on your main door.

  The  multi barrier approach is the smartest approach to water treatment to mitigate the maximum amount of risk. The more treatment barriers, the less potential of a contaminant making it through.

  This type of approach can be used with a personal water system too. If you have a well or your own water supply, the best approach is the multi barrier approach.

  The first barrier of any multi barrier approach is your water source. The cleaner it is, the less treatment you’ll need, and the less likely you are to have a problem. No contaminant is easiest to treat.

  Look at your water supply. Is it secure?  Can garbage, debris, or other foreign objects or contaminants  enter the water supply?

  If you have a well, is it bored or drilled?  If your well is old, it may be time to invest in a new one.  New drilled wells are very secure.  Your well driller will know where the best and most plentiful water is in the aquifer.  Your new well will have a screen at the bottom to ensure none of the surrounding soil gets sucked up by your pump. A new well will have a device called a pitless adapter, eliminating the need to have a pit dug for your well and lessening the chances for foreign object contamination or contaminated surface water infiltration.  It will also have something called an annular seal, which is an additional safety barrier to contaminated surface water intrusion.

  Filtration is an important step in treatment.  Filters remove any sediment that might make it in.  Not only is sediment aesthetically displeasing, it can both harbor bacteria and shield it from disinfection.  Using sediment filters will remove this from your water.  Consider using several different filters of different pore sizes from largest to smallest.  This will reduce the frequency of filter changes as well as catch more sediment.  Your water conditioner salesperson can help you with this, and custom design a filter system to best suit your needs and your raw water quality.

  Also, if you are using surface water such as a pond or lake, consider using a 1 micron absolute filter after your sediment filters. Protozoa such as giardia and cryptosporidium inhabit surface waters.  These protozoa are between 2 and 10 micron in size, so a 1 micron absolute filter will effectively filter them out if there are any.

  Finally, you need disinfection.  A point of entry disinfection device like a U.V. system is ideal for the home owner as it requires little maintenance and contains no chemicals.  It is important to find a good device that has appropriate third party validations proving it’s effectivness. If there are no third party tests for the unit, it likely will not contain a proper dose.

  The last step is testing.  To ensure that your water is free from contaminants, test it on a regular basis.  Your local health unit can do testing, and/or refer you to the proper laboritories.

  Using a multi barrier treatment approach can assure that you and your family have safe, clean drinking water, just as is supplied by large municipal systems.

  

  Tags: risk management, water filter, water treatment, well

• 13Oct

  How to choose a U.V. system

  Drinking Water, disinfection 2 Comments

  Your don’t have a municipal water supply to your house.  The water comes from a well, and you’ve decided to protect the health of yourself and your family by installing a water treatment system.  You’ve done some research and have decided you want an ultraviolet light treatment system, because it uses no chemicals.  So how do you choose the most appropriate system for you?

  Your very first condition is to find a system that provides a minimum safe dosage of disinfection.  After all, you want to make sure that you kill any organisms that might be in your water with a safe margin of error.  The way this is accomplished is by third party validation.  There are companies out there that test U.V. devices to make sure they can provide the most appropriate dosage. The strictest of these third parties, and the one that Canadian and USA governments base their regulations on is NSF, or the National Sanitation Foundation.  After extensive testing, NSF has come out with a standard for U.V. disinfection devices. This standard is NSF 55 Class A protocol.  NSF 55 Class A tells us that a minimum safe dosage for U.V. systems is 40 mj/cm2.

  But that dosage is not just dependent on the ability of the unit to provide it.  It is also very dependent on the conditions of your home and the water supply.  There are two things that you must know when going shopping for a U.V. unit:

  1. Your maximum flow rate
  2. The U.V.T. (ultraviolet transmittance) of your water.

  U.V. dosage is calculated by the energy of the lamps, your maximum flow rate, and your UVT, or how much U.V. light energy can pass through the water.

  Estimating Flow Rate:

  It is unlikely that every single tap and shower will be on and every toilet in the house will be flushed at once.  The larger your family is, the more water will be used.  To estimate the flow rate, simply observe your families habits on the busiest days of water usage.  Take a note pad and figure out when the most water is being used.  When you’ve done that, it’s time to see how much water flows.  For each outlet, turn it on and let it fill a measuring cup while timing it.  If it takes 10 seconds to fill up a 1 liter measuring cup, then your device can go through 6 liters per minute.  Add all this up to come up with a maximum flow rate.

  Finding out your UVT:

  This is not something you can do yourself. Also, it’s important to note that sometimes when water looks clear, it can have dissolved minerals and organics that can absorb U.V. light.  You need to send a raw water sample (raw water means before any existing filter or treatment devices) to a laboratory so they can test it for you.  This is a simple test and shouldn’t cost more than $20.00 to complete.  If you don’t know of any labs or are having trouble locating them in your phone book, contact your local health unit or municipality. They should be able to provide one for you.

  Now you have the information you need to go shopping for a proper unit.  Don’t be afraid to ask questions, and don’t let the salesman tell you that you don’t need a dosage that high.  In most cases, the person selling you the U.V. system is just a salesman. While he may know a good deal about water treatment equipment, he does not have the knowledge, expertise or experience of the people at a company like NSF.  The NSF 55 Class A standard was derived from testing using live bacteria, and that is how they came up with this minimum safe dosage.  Tell the salesman your U.V.T, your maximum flow rate and the dosage you need, and insist you look at the specifications.  If your UVT is 75% and your flow rate is 60 liters a minute, and the specifications of the UV system say 50 liters per minute and require a UVT of 95%, that system is not adequate for your needs.

  Other Requirements:

  All U.V. lamps have a lifespan.  Most reputable manufacturers tell you to replace the lamps once per year.  All U.V. lamps start off strong when you first fire them up and slowly get weaker over that one year span.  You should ensure the manufacturer has based the minimum U.V. dosage at the end of lamp life, not at the beginning.

  A U.V. system produces heat and will “cook” water just like a kettle if it is let stand too long.  And just like a kettle, some of the minerals in your water will come out as a white flaky material.  No doubt you’ve cleaned out your kettle and seen the hardness and limescale build up.  This can happen to your U.V. if there are periods where you let it sit for a long time, or leave it on while you go away on vacation. There are ways of mitigating this problem, and make sure you ask the salesman how this can be prevented. Remember, if the U.V. system is coated with white scale on the inside, non of the U.V. light will be able to do any disinfection.

  Some U.V. systems come with alarms.  This can tell you if the lamp has degraded, your one year is up, or if the system is fouled with lime scale.  A good U.V. system will have a sensor that can determine these things and an alarm to alert you that the water is not being properly disinfected.  A high quality system will come with a shut off valve that will not allow any water to your house if it is not properly disinfected.

  Remember, when it comes to the saftey of the water you and your family drinks, not all U.V. systems are created equal.  Make sure you have the right one for your needs, and you can rest assured your water will be safe to drink.

  

  Tags: choosing UV system, sizing u.v. system, U.V.T., ultraviolet

« Previous Entries   Next Entries »