I have recently started having a problem with my kitchen sink. The aerator on the spigot keeps getting clogged with some sort of white stuff. It looks sort of like plastic, but it’s a little bit brittle/crumbly. I have to take off the aerator and clean it about once a week. I’ve had to do the same for one other sink in my house once in the last six months… but that could be just because the kitchen sink gets used a lot more than others.
My swag is this is some kind of seal that is deteriorating somewhere in the plubing system.
So, what is it?
Should I be concerned about health risks of ingesting this stuff?
Should I be concerned my plumbing is in need of a major repair somewhere?
Unrelated bonus plumbing question…
My 3 story townhouse has really bad water pressure on the upper floors. Any thoughts how to get the pressure up? When I lived overseas, some apartments came with “power showers” that included a water pump. How expensive would it be to add a pressurizer to the internal plumbing or to a shower?
The whit junk is most likely one of 2 things: Plumbers (and some of us regular folks as well) wrap pipe threads with white klingy teflon tape before screwing fixtures together–prevents leaks. IIRC there used to be a white cream, sometimes even soap, that was used for this purpose. It could be this stuff. Most likely, however, you just have some mineral buildup in the pipes that is flaking off–sorta like arterial plaque when it goes hunting for a brain or lung capillary… I think it’s just calcium carbonate 7 actually kinda good for you if you have adequate vitamin C to assist in it’s uptake. Maybe.
Total WAG on the bonus Q: I seem to recall that the pressure in the water main out at the street is a bit higher than what you get in the house. There is a pressure regulator that adjusts the water when it enters the house. Kind of like the electrical transformer that keeps your electrical outlets down to a (relatively) safe and usable level. This regulator could be faulty, or you might be able to have it replaced with a more “permissive” one.
A real plumber will be along shortly to illustrate the foolishness of my post. Have a nice day.
Question: Are you on city water, or on your own well? If you’re on a well, your pump is chewing itself to death, and you’ll soon be without water. The pieces will be loose, not clinging to the fixture. The shreds will have to be cleaned out of every valve in the house, and, of course, you’ll need a new pump. Ugly stuff.
If you’re on city water, it’s probably lime. It’s a calcium-based stuff that’s dissolved in the water, and when the water evaporates, this white crust forms. You can remove it with vinegar or stronger acids. Remember, though, the stronger acids will erode chrome plating.
Hmmm…my first instinct was lime or calcium deposits. Sometimes they seem to pile up fast. If it’s crumbly, then these deposits might be the culprit. They can cut off water in my shower after six months w/out cleaning.
If you can’t reduce the particles (not crumbly)very much, then the building you live in might have some system that is deteriorating…some plastic, etc.
Maybe a filter or filter system is breaking down and you are getting all the deposits that had been filtered, but are now coming in bunches towards your fixtures. Essentially delivering months/years of filtered deposits all at once.
WHat you’re seeing is calcium, the stuff that makes hard water hard. It gets on the pipes, too, and over time clogs them. It’s not harmful, in fact, I think it’s good for you. I don’t know about the body’s ability to absorb calcium from water, but in general, the more calcium you get, the happier your bones will be.
The solution is to get soft water. Soft water used to be available in tanks that the supplier (usually Culligan) replaced monthly. Maybe you can still get it that way. The usual way is to get a water softener, but you have to keep filling it with NaCl (the way they work is to replace the calcium with sodium). Soft water feels sort of oily when you wash, because soap does not combine with sodium as it does with calcium. Some people like that; I hate it.
Never heard of a pressurizer. I could use one myself, except it sounds like something else to go wrong.
If it is in just your hot water you may have this problem.
Where we lived in the past had terrible water, (high TDS). Water heaters had a short life, if they didn’t fail from a leak the solids coming from the hot water would become a problem. This would cause plugging in screens that are before control valves like on dishwashers and washing machines, plugged shower heads and faucet aerators. Routinely draining the hot water heater did little good but it did keep the valve from plugging… sure is a problem to change out a hot water heater full of water.