The health effects from ingesting contaminated water include nausea, vomiting, cramps, diarrhea, and other stomach illnesses. To avoid drinking poor water, look out for these warning signs outlined by the experts at Warner Service in Frederick, Maryland:
- The water is murky. If your home’s tap water is cloudy, it’s a sign of high mineral levels. While a small amount of organic minerals are naturally found in tap water, a cloudy appearance is a sign that you should call a plumbing professional like Warner Service in Frederick, Maryland.
- The water smells like chlorine or sulfur. Chlorine is used to sanitize and clean swimming pools, and most public water treatment facilities add a small, safe amount of chlorine to kill any bacteria in tap water.
However, if the water in your home smells like chlorine, it’s not safe for consumption. The high level of chlorine could also irritate your family’s skin and eyes when bathing, and chlorine-laden water decreases the life of clothes and linens during wash. Call a professional to address this plumbing problem.
If your home’s water smells like rotten eggs, a high level of sulfur is present. This makes the tap water dangerous to drink, and a plumbing professional should be contacted immediately.
- The water has a tint. If the tap water in your home has any discoloration or tint, it’s unsafe. The tint is a result of one of the following, according to the Environmental Working Group, a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to protecting human health and the environment:
- Excessive iron, manganese, or other organic material levels
- Rust in your home drainage system, especially if your home uses older cast iron or lead pipes that have corroded
- A new natural water source, which caused the current water crisis in Flint, Michigan, and the early 2000s water crisis in Washington, D.C.
- Extra air trapped in or moving through the water
- Upstream pollution from rainwashed chemicals, including pesticides, fracking residue, and motor oil runoff in agricultural and highway communities, respectively
- The water has an oily film. If you notice an oily film at the top of standing water in the toilet or shower/bathtub, grease or oil has made it into your home drainage system. To fix this plumbing problem, call Warner Service.
- The water tastes metallic-like or bitter. If the tap water tastes bitter or like metallic, stop drinking it immediately. This is a telltale sign of major contamination, and a plumbing professional should be contacted.
- The water pressure has decreased. When you’re in the shower, has the water pressure decreased? Is the bathtub or kitchen sink not filling up as quickly?
If you answered yes to either of those questions, call a professional to discuss solutions to this water pressure plumbing problem. You can also check out easy and hard solutions to this issue in our blog.
- The water fixtures have a blue-green stain. According to AquaBSafe, a company that sells products for monitoring water quality, blue-green stains signal a high level of copper in the drinking water.
“At high exposures, copper can cause anemia, digestion issues, or liver and kidney damage.” Certain home water filtration systems, like reverse osmosis, can help remove this metal from your home’s water supply.
Poor water quality is a fixable issue, if you purchase a water filtration system for your home. With many options to choose from, water treatment systems offer the best solution to cleaning organically and inorganically contaminated water.
You can also click on the button below to download our Water Treatment Checklist for more symptoms:
