# brown water after newe heater



## love2surf927 (Dec 22, 2011)

Friday I installed a new 75 gallon Bradford to replace a leaking tank. 
This tank had a 1/2 inch circ line with a grundfos pump, check in correct position (after pump), hose bibb, all isolated by two ball valves. Circ line is piped into bottom of heater. 

Installed new tank, new dielectrics, about 1 foot of 1" inch L on hot and cold. Reconnected 1/2 inch line, filled tank, purged of air, purged circ line of air but with a hose that was in the street so I could not see the discharge. 

Turned pump back on when I had no more air and turned last ball valve back on. I did the install when the HO was not home, and did not have access to house. 

I left and got a call that afternoon that she was getting dark brown water out of some of her fixtures. The only time I have run into this was when the pump was not operating properly and water had stagnated in line, which turned the water brown, and stinky.

Having purged the line for several minutes I do not think this was a possibility. 

The only other thing I could think of it being was possibly when I operated the ball valves there was something breaking down internally or the check valve, (when I had the check out I stuck a pecil through to see if it was working), it was a spring check.

Went back this morning, drained tank replaced both BV's, CV, took apart the pump to inspect and ran all new piping on the outside of wall to heater. When I purged the circ line this morning I got about 7 gallons of brown water, then it cleared up and seems to be running clear at the time when I left. We will see.

Any thoughts on what this could have been, the brown water did not seem to me to be stagnant water as I have dealt with this before but I could be mistaken, of course. Any opinions much appreciated, thanks to all.


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## AWWGH (May 2, 2011)

Do they have a well or a community water system?

If it's a well it is possible that the well was drawn down while filling the tank. When wells get drawn down you can get dirty water.


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## love2surf927 (Dec 22, 2011)

No but they do have a booster pump, but the issue was only on the hot side, cold water unaffected.


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## DesertOkie (Jul 15, 2011)

I've seen circ lines suck the sludge from the bottom of the WH when they had bad or no check valves. Same thing a leak caused vacuum somehow. 

I spent two days getting all the crap out of fixture lines.


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## Rustyguns2 (Aug 20, 2011)

I got this same kind of call last week. Brown water on hot side with recirc pump. Checked everything
I could dream of causing this. The only thing I could find was some light rust inside recirc pump, but there was some rust and scale on the Galv nipples from the tank to the check to the pump. The house was done in copper except at the recirc. pump with bronze flanges, so no contact with copper. I replaced the the Galv with brass. And problem went away. I don't really understand why, we have been using Galv. in recirc. systems isolated with brass for years and never had a problem.
This water had lots of Magnesium sulfate in it I don't know if that contributed to the problem.


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## hroark2112 (Apr 16, 2011)

Thermal transient knocked all the crap off the pipe walls. Cold water will do that to pipes that are normally hot.


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