by Gary Mays | Aug 23, 2013 | City of Gold Coast, cloudy hot water, Consumer Issues, Gold Coast Plumbing, Health Issues, Hot Water, Hot Water Heat Pump, Hot Water Temperature, licensed plumber, Plumbers Gold Coast, Plumbing Maintenance, Taqua built in filtration sink mixer tap, Water Filtration
Why does my hot water look yuck?
Why is my hot water cloudy is one of those perennial questions that arise for the plumbing technicians at Whywait Plumbing.
Generally, the problem is based around reoccurring issues of “what do you think causes cloudy (white, not dirty) water that comes out of the kitchen tap when on hot? It doesn’t do it in the cold; you don’t get the same residue if you boil cold. The photo below is the residue after 30 seconds when the water settles.”
Very simply, in most cases, cloudy, hot water is caused by dissolved gases in the water. We assure you it is safe to use.
To get cloudy water from your hot tap, you must create the right set of circumstances for everything to come together simultaneously.
So why is my hot water not clear but looks milky?
Turning on the hot water tap and having milky or cloudy water for a few seconds is not unusual. This is a common occurrence that a fundamental principle of physics can explain.
To understand why hot water can appear cloudy, you first need to know that all the water in your home is stored in your pipes under pressure. When water is under pressure, it has a higher capacity to hold dissolved gases. However, when you heat water, the ability to hold those dissolved gases is reduced. This creates supersaturation, which is when there are more dissolved gases in the water than they can carry.
When you turn on the hot water tap, the release of pressure causes those dissolved gases to be released in the form of tiny gas bubbles, which give the water a cloudy or milky appearance. Think of it like popping the cork off a bottle of champagne – all that pressure has to go somewhere!
What causes hot water to look milky or cloudy when you first turn on your tap?
If you’ve ever turned on your hot water tap and found that the water is milky or cloudy, don’t worry, you’re not alone. This common occurrence can happen when turning on the tap releases the pressure, often in an initial highly pressurised burst. The dissolved gas in the water comes out of the solution in the form of tiny gas bubbles, which fill the water and give it a cloudy or milky appearance.
But the good news is that this is a normal and healthy condition for your water. In fact, reasonable quantities of dissolved gas or air in water are not uncommon. And as the gas bubbles dissolve, the water will clear from the bottom up, like a disappearing act. You can easily observe the water rapidly clearing from the bottom up in a glass.
So, if you’re concerned that your hot water service is defective or your water is contaminated, don’t be. We guarantee that cloudy water does not mean anything wrong with your hot water service or water quality. In fact, gas bubbles in your hot water supply will increase with the increase in temperature of your water because the hotter your water, the lower the number of gas bubbles that can be held. So, give it a few seconds, and your hot water will be clear and ready to use.
What should I do if my hot water is always cloudy?
If your water is continually cloudy after the initial burst of hot water, it needs further investigation. Gas bubbles do not cause cloudiness that does not dissolve in hot water.
Seldom is it a fault with your hot water service? If the water does not lose the cloudiness within thirty seconds, you likely have a water filtration problem or a sediment buildup in the hot water tank.
Investigating cloudy, hot water needs to be undertaken by a licensed plumber, so if you are continuously asking yourself why is my hot water cloudy, you need to call us at Whywait Plumbing on (07) 5580 4311 and book a site visit.
by Gary Mays | Jul 4, 2013 | Health Issues, Insurance, Leaking Pipes, Plumbing Emergencies
Imagine you’re at home in the kitchen, cooking dinner and water suddenly starts to pour through the light fitting in the ceiling above your head.
Do you know how to shut off the main water supply into your home?
If you answered yes that’s great. But do your children know?
And yes just in case you were wondering a light fitting is the most common place for water to leak from in the ceiling. The first thing to do is turn off the water and not the electricity supply.
Considering the amount of panicking phone calls we receive every week at Whywait Plumbing from people who have water pouring out of the ceiling or out of a burst tap or from under their sink or from their hot water service I can assure you there is an awful lot of people who don’t know how to turn off their main water supply.
In any Australian home the water supply is one of the most important things that you always expect to be working. After all, a house would not be worth much without a working kitchen sink or toilet or shower. So familiarising yourself, and your family with your water supply system can save you stress, time, money and most of all avoid what can be costly repairs from water damage.
The most critical thing every person who lives in the house should know is where and how to turn off the main water supply.
Finding where is the first step. If your home is on the city water supply which is the greatest majority of homes then there will be a meter that controls the water supply. This is usually located at the front boundary line of your property on either the far left or far right side. In all likelihood it will be in the grass area in the meter box similar to the photo on the right.
Once you locate the meter box you will need to lift the lid to access the meter and the control valve. However do be cautious, as there are almost always spiders and often cane toads living inside.
In all likelihood when you lift the meter box lid you will be confronted by a build-up of sand or silt inside the box which frequently means digging it out to locate the control valve and the meter.
Once you have uncovered the fittings inside the meter box you will see there is only a control valve to turn off the water supply to your home and the actual water meter. Neither of these can be confused for the other.
The control valve is always located away from your house closest to the road or kerb side. Unfortunately it is not a standard valve and will come in a wide variety of configurations. Most common is a lever action ball valve which is simply a quarter turn to isolate the water.
Hopefully there are no problems with the water supply system in your home, but if the situation does arise it is best to be prepared. We therefore recommend you do the following:
- locate where your meter box is on your property and ensure you work out how to operate the control valve
- open the lid every month and remove and sand and silt build-up
- at least every 6 months check that the control valve is turning the water supply off to the whole house
- make sure every person living in the house knows where and how to turn off the main water supply control valve
If you have any questions about isolating your homes main water supply call Whywait Plumbing or next time you have a plumber from Whywait at your home or business ensure you get all your questions answered on turning off your water.
Finally always remember to turn off your water supply when going away on holiday because nothing will ruin your return home like driving up your driveway to see water pouring out of the garage or front door.
By Gary Mays
by Gary Mays | Jun 25, 2013 | Consumer Issues, Health Issues, Hot Water Legionella, Hot Water Temperature, Plumbing Maintenance
The recent outbreaks of hot water Legionella in Queensland mainly in hospitals is of concern. These, for the most part, were warm water systems 
which are not the same as your home hot water storage tank.
With hot or warm water systems there is always some risk but every system checked in recent weeks by Whywait Plumbing has had hot water temperatures that virtually eliminate all risk. However, there is almost no risk of you or your family contracting Legionella bacteria as a result of it breeding in your home hot water system.
Legionella Transmission Via Hot Water
Legionella transmission is airborne via respiratory droplets containing the bacteria. Warm water and domestic hot water systems that are contaminated will generally see the transmission of the bacteria in a shower that has not been used for a period of time.
Hot Water Preventative Measures For Legionella
Hot water systems should be maintained so that water at the point of use at any tap or outlet is 50°C or more after having been turned on for one minute.
Hot water systems should not be used until they have reached 50°C especially if they have been turned on for any period.
Generally, domestic hot water systems should have a temperature of 60°C or higher in water leaving the hot water storage tank.
DO NOT turn down the thermostat on an electric hot water storage tank to below 60C.
Hot Water Temperature For Preventative Of Legionella
Hot water systems should be maintained so that water at the point of use at any tap has a temperature that affects the survival of Legionella as follows:
- Above 70 °C – Legionella dies almost instantly
- At 60 °C – 90% die in 2 minutes
- At 50 °C – 90% die in 80-124 minutes, depending on strain
- 48 to 50 °C – Can survive but do not multiply
- 32 to 42 °C – Ideal growth range
- 25 to 45 °C – Growth range
- Below 20 °C – Can survive but are dormant, even below freezing
What Is Legionella Bacteria or Legionnaires Disease
What it is:
- Caused by the Legionella bacteria, commonly found in creeks, ponds and soil.
- Rare in people under 20 years, with those over 50 years old who smoke or have a weak immune system particularly susceptible.
Symptoms:
- Non-specific flu-like symptoms including fever, headache and muscle aches, developing within a week of breathing in the bacteria.
- Usually progresses rapidly with pneumonia symptoms, high fever, shortness of breath and chest pain typical.
Treatment:
- A person with the disease usually needs to be admitted to hospital for antibiotic treatment and care.
- Early diagnosis and antibiotic treatment important, and those treated usually begin to improve with three to five days.
Testing Your Storage Tank
For most homes, there is a very little risk of you having hot water legionella occur in your hot water storage tank unless you do really stupid things such as turn off your heating source.
An easy test of the storage temperature is to get a thermometer and test the temperature of your water from the overflow relief valve drain.
If you have any doubts about the temperature in your storage tank contact Whywait Plumbing to organise a service call to check your hot water system.
by Gary Mays | Jun 7, 2013 | Consumer Issues, Health Issues, Hot Water Legionella, Hot Water Temperature, Plumbing Maintenance
Judging by the number of phone calls in the last few days to Whywait Plumbing there is genuine concern amongst our clients over the threats posed to them from Legionella risk in their domestic hot water systems.
We can assure you whilst there is always some Legionella risk, there is almost no risk of you or your family contracting Legionella bacteria as a result of it breeding in your home hot water system.
The outbreak of Legionella bacteria in the hot water system at Wesley Hospital that killed a 60-year-old cancer patient and left a 46-year-old woman seriously ill has minor ramifications to be sure because all hot water systems can pose a risk.
That potential risk is why Whywait Plumbing is constantly advocating appropriate maintenance on your home hot water system to minimise that risk even further.
However, there is a huge difference between your home or domestic hot water system and the warm water recirculating system at Wesley Hospital. The Legionella outbreak in their warm water system has not been as a result of contamination in the hot water storage system or the hot water pipes but appears to be literally at the point of delivery from the shower where the water is cooler.
A warm water system is vastly different to your home hot water system with Wesley’s water temperature set between 42.5°C and 43°C. This is lower than the maximum 45°C legislated in the Plumbing and Drainage Act for hospitals. This low-temperature setting is a result of guidelines from Queensland Health that dictate hot water temperatures in hospitals be reduced to avoid the possibility of serious burns to young children and elderly patients. The downside of this requirement is that the possibility of Legionella bacteria surviving in reticulation pipes is increased. Water temperatures of around 46°C will kill legionella bacteria.
Warm water systems are typically found in care facilities, such as nursing homes, hospitals and child care centres, where water for purposes such as bathing and cleaning is provided at approximately 45°C to prevent scalding.
Your home hot water system if it is a storage tank is heating the hot water to between 60°C and 70°C. If you have a tempering valve or thermostatic mixing valve (TMV) installed then that has been set to deliver hot water at 50°C at each individual tap.
If you have no tempering valve installed, you virtually have eliminated all risk. But you have increased the risk of someone suffering a scalding from hot water. As always it is about managing risk.
However, there is an urban myth prevalent that you can reduce electricity costs by turning the thermostat down on an electric storage unit to 50°C. This is not recommended for many reasons but it will not save you electricity and to physically get a thermostat down that low requires physically breaking the locking mechanism on it that allows the setting to be between 60°C – 70°C. If you want to lower the delivery temperature the only acceptable and compliant method is to install a tempering valve.
In 99.99% of cases, the temperature ranges your hot water system operates in is almost certainly killing any Legionella bacteria. The risk if any, is after the storage tank in the reticulation pipes. By turning your shower on and running the tap with hot water first then cooling down with cold water to your desired shower temperature you are virtually eliminating what risk there is.
What the outbreak at Wesley Hospital has confirmed is that there is a risk from warm water and that maintenance of your hot water systems will manage and eliminate that risk.
What Whywait Plumbing do recommend is that you take advantage of our ongoing reminders and offers to service your tempering valves. This not only ensures that water is being delivered at 50°C but eliminates any possibility of Legionella. It also ensures you are complying with the requirements of most insurance policies in ensuring that routine maintenance is undertaken plus we provide you with a written report and a form 4 compliance certificate that is further evidence of your hot water unit being compliant.
by Gary Mays | Apr 27, 2013 | Consumer Issues, DIY Plumbing, Gold Coast Plumbing, Health Issues, Insurance, Plumbers, Plumbers Gold Coast, Plumbing Emergencies, Plumbing Legislation, Sustainable Plumbing
Plumbing is public health, now and in the future. Just as Vaccination Protects Individuals and the Community. Plumbing Protects the Whole Community, and Individually Plumbers Protect the Health of the Nation.
The plumbers at Whywait Plumbing every day protecting your health
Albert Einstein towards the end of his life in 1954 wrote “If I would be a young man again and had to decide how to make my living, I would not try to become a scientist or scholar or teacher. I would rather choose to be a plumber.”
Einstein, like many others, recognised that plumbing is public health, now, and in the future.
A survey of 11000 doctors by the British Medical Journal in 2007 voted hands down that the world’s greatest medical milestone since 1840 was sanitation. Despite all the tremendous medical breakthroughs and scientific advances, the seemingly mundane advance of reliable sewage and reliably clean water supply was judged the most significant medical advance.
The recognition of reliable sewage and water supply is a testament to the strength of plumbing laws, standards, and licensing in not only Australia but also in Europe and North America. This is because doctors recognised the best measure of medical advance is not its complexity, but what it does for the average person concerning the length and quality of our lives. The average life expectancy has increased 35 years since 1840, and roughly 30 of those years are attributable to the advances in sanitation and living conditions.
For most of us in Australia, plumbing is something we take for granted. We have never known what it is like not to have on-demand clean running water inside our homes or a fully functional sewer system to take away the used water. Close to 90% of us live in an urban environment, and for that, we can thank plumbing, that allows us to do so safely, without fear of contracting waterborne diseases. Yet even plumbers fail to understand the impact that they have on modern urban society and that their work is essential as plumbing is public health.
Clean potable water is the basis for life and without it the risk to public health and the population as a whole increase. The cost to the community of plumbing failures are substantial and always have been. Plumbing is and always has been a significant part of the public health system. This was first learnt by the Romans, who were the first civilised society over 2000 years ago to realise the requirements to have an integrated plumbing system to pipe in clean water and dispose of used water.
In Asia alone, some 2 billion people, which is over 60% of the population of Asia, live without adequate access to sanitation such as toilets. In many places, open sewers are the norm. This would not be tolerated in Australia, and we are protected from it by our plumbing laws.
Recent natural disasters here in Australia and internationally are essential reminders of the role plumbing plays in modern life. Homes in Brisbane during the recent floods were made uninhabitable with the loss of plumbing. This is further reinforced by the earthquakes in Christchurch, the tsunami in Japan, cyclones in North Queensland, and the floods in Victoria where homes were not suitable to be lived in again until full plumbing services were reinstalled. In all of these natural disasters, the restoration of plumbing was a significant component of the recovery process.
As with everything in life, change is the constant and this is undoubtedly true of plumbing. As we solve one problem, another one arises. Diseases related to water always have required vigilance in preventing their spread. This is as true today as it has always been. As always, this is where the plumbing will once again prove to be a significant part of the solution.
The mosquito has always been a significant source of transmission of serious diseases such as malaria, ross river fever, dengue fever, to name a few. New arboviruses such as Chikungunya are increasingly a threat to Australia. These emerging infectious diseases are all spread by mosquito and are dependant on water. This intimate dependency on water increase risk without high plumbing standards of becoming endemic in Australia.
With the increasing threat to the community from the mosquito-spread of waterborne strong plumbing, practices are essential.
Plumbers have a continuing obligation to the community to use their knowledge and experience to demonstrate the impact that poor plumbing could have in the future because plumbing is public health.
by Gary Mays | Apr 6, 2013 | City of Gold Coast, DIY Plumbing, Health Issues, Insurance, Plumbing Emergencies, Plumbing Maintenance
Here at Whywait Plumbing we are often left wondering at the stupid things people do to their plumbing which ensures plumbers are never short of or will run out of work.
Essentially at Whywait Plumbing we are maintenance plumbing specialists and our primary work is to make house calls 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year. The basic reason plumbers never run out of work is based on two truths:
1) our clients will always need plumbing—or more specifically, plumbing that works—and,
2) some of our clients will always do stupid things that stop their plumbing from working.
Keeping in mind that the maintenance side of plumbing often requires a strong stomach and the need to suppress amusement with other peoples’ self-imposed misfortune. But rest assured that the two truths mentioned above will always ensure the plumbers at Whywait Plumbing will keep your plumbing working to keep your business. Listed below are samples of stupid things that some of our clients do to their plumbing that require Whywait staff to suppress their amusement or often bemusement.
- Leaving hoses connected and turned on at the tap and then going away on holiday. This is a classic plumbing error that one must assume is caused most often by extreme laziness with the only beneficiary being Gold Coast Water with all of the extra water this client ultimately had to pay for when the hose burst.
- Using the drain vent pipe for anything other than venting because there is plenty of room inside the pipe. This client was running TV aerial cables, pay TV cables and computer cables down the drainage vent pipe that come up through the roof. For this client it was the solution for getting all of the cabling into the house through a single 50mm pipe. But as he learnt vent pipes are not just there for their bad looks. Vent pipes not only provide air to drains inside the house and to prevent a suction effect that inhibits drainage but they also get rid of sewer gases that come up from the Gold Coast Water’s sewer main. If you cut a hole in your vent inside the house to run a cable through, you’re tapping into an endless supply of your neighborhood’s sewer gases. He had a nice picture on the TV in his lounge room with full access to the Internet but made the house almost uninhabitable with the fluctuating sewer gases entering the house.
- Using too much drain cleaner. When used judiciously and as directed on the right kind of blockage, drain cleaners can be effective and relatively safe for drains. When used with abandon, they can corrode some drain pipes such as copper which this client managed to achieve while making Bunnings very happy with all of his purchases. Plus so much was poured down the pipe it made the blockage worse.
- Pouring chemicals into a septic system. If you’re used to living with a septic system, you probably know how to take care of it. But this client was renting a house on acreage and did not think twice about using chemicals like drain cleaner, chlorine bleach, paint and even anti-bacterial soaps. These chemicals killed the essential bacteria in the septic tank, and caused it to stop working but of course waited until Christmas Day to finally block when he had a house full of family visiting.
- Screwing, nailing or cutting into a wall without checking for hidden plumbing pipes. The advent of multiple types of plastic water pipes have turned this into a nightmare for plumbers as they cannot be welded up like a copper pipe plus none of the systems are compatible. Doing this with a screw and you might hear a fine spray of water hitting the back of the wall. But this client did it with a chainsaw and got the ultimate gusher hitting not only the hot and cold pipes but also the hot water storage tank.
- Pouring cooking oil and fats down the kitchen drain. If you’re in the habit of pouring cooking oil and fats down the kitchen sink drain you are guaranteeing a drain blockage sooner rather than later. Cooking oil and fat is one of the best things for blocking drains as a recent client discovered managing to block up his entire unit and that of her neighbour in a duplex block on Australia Day when the neighbour was entertaining friends for a traditional barbecue.
- Putting everything down the kitchen waste disposal unit. Unfortunately this client was one of those people who thought a waste disposal unit was the equivalent of a space-fantasy laser gun. Unfortunately she found out it was not in the middle of a dinner party for important clients of her husbands business. A waste disposal unit is essentially a motor with a spinning wheel that has two metal blades, and it does very little to stop the following from blocking your drain even if you do run copious amounts of water into the kitchen sink: bulk flour, bulk rice, flower stems, prawn shells, oyster shells, filleted fish scales and skin and a couple of spoons. The smell was not great either.
- Using the toilet as a rubbish bin. We all know it is stupid to put a lot of solids or newspaper down the toilet but many people do it anyway. This client like many others we rescue believed that if she could just get it to flush away it would be magically out of her life forever. Like many people she had the mistaken belief that at the other end of the toilet there is nothing but a black hole which is a portal to a subterranean outer space that swallows up everything she could discard and it is then whisked off into oblivion. Unfortunately, that oblivion is a 100mm pipe that leads into another 100mm pipe, which was the drainage pipe to her entire house. In other words constantly flushing incorrect items down the toilet over an extended period ultimately caused the entire house to block up and the drain had to be dug up to remove all the solidified debris that had mounted up. The bottom line is if it is not toilet paper or faeces or urine it does not belong in the toilet pan.
And those are just a few of the stupid things we have rectified this year to date at Whywait Plumbing Services.
