Yellow sludge water... help!!

[jbigs]

Looking for some help. I'm on my 5th plumber (no joke), and nobody has seen anything like this. Moved into this house 2 months ago. It has a solar water heater paired with an electric water heater that is only a year old (solar heater is 10 years old I believe) . We are having a serious issue with sediment in our bathtubs and building up in shower heads. The water was also extremely hot so we turned down the electric heater down to 120 a few weeks ago... BIG problem. A week later we had yellow sludge water coming out of our hot water faucet. It looked like something out of ghostbusters. Now looking back the water looked a bit murky but I thought it was due to the hot water looking cloudy anyways. Here is what I have come up with so far. We are having expensive water lab tests for heavy metals and bacteria. Basic bacteria test indicate no harmful bacteria in water.

Copper pipes in house
Chlorine levels at water entering house (from hose near main) indicate adequate chlorine levels .3ppm
Chlorine levels are somewhat reduced when they reach our cold water faucet. But levels are ZERO in both solar and electric tanks.

I have had both tanks flushed AND drained.

Solar water heater tank water was yellow, with minimal sediment and I believed smelled bad.
Electric water heater tank water was yellow, sludge (separates to bottom).
A ton of sediment was in the electric heater.

The temperature of the solar heater is 160
I turned up the electric to 160 for a few days to kill bacteria, then back to 140 but noticed more yellow water today.

One of the plumbers plumber checked both anode rods, both corroded and nasty but thats normal right? We discussed replacing with zinc. Cost would be $400 to replace the just one in the solar heater. I thought this was high???

So... My next step is: water tests will be back in a few days
Do I ditch the electric tank and go solar only and replace anode rod with a zinc one? Potential down side is not enough hot water in the winter?
Or keep both tanks, replace both anode rods? And do a peroxide or bleach flush?

To complicate issues we are looking to get a water softener (I'm leaning toward potassium instead of salt).

I'm afraid of the potential issues of softened water in a solar tank thats maintained at 160. I believe we have to keep it high to keep the bacteria down because I still don't know what is happening to my chlorine in the tank?

I would like to filter out the chlorine anyways so I don't mind that it isn't there, but could it be causing bacterial growth??

Does anybody have any ideas why chlorine levels would diminish and be zero in both tanks when level was ok in cold?

P.S. Just talked to the previous owner- he said he usually kept the electric tank at 120 and thought maybe inspector turned up during inspections?? He said he didn't have any issue with sediment but I don't think he used those particular bathrooms much...

Pics would only upload sideways :-/ Bacteria water1.JPG Bacteria water2.JPG Sediment.JPG

[Mike90250]

That is hard water calcium deposits. When you have hard water, you are supposed to drain that gunk out of the water heater 2x a year. Eventually, it builds up enough that as a large hunk rattles around in the tank it cracks the glass liner and then it rusts out.
Put a standard brine (salt/sodium) softener in the hot water inlet (where the cold water goes to the first heater) It will take a couple months to slowly clear out.
Any good plumber would know instantly what that was. I had 2 50 gal heaters that I would flush, would get about a quart from each heater.
I had also replaced the factory drain with a 3/4" ball valve so all the chunks could get through

[jbigs]

Thanks for the input Mike. I know the sediment is calcium deposits, but what about the sludge looking stuff? Is that calcium also? And would a re-circulation pump stir this stuff up from the bottom and cause it to come out of the faucets more than "usual". Do you know how potassium would react in the solar heater vs. Salt? I'm really leaning toward potassium but everything I do lately appears to cause more problems. Just trying to avoid more issues. Thanks for the help!

[Mike90250]

Water softener salt has successfully been used for 60 years, and the ONLY caveat I know of is houseplants and low sodium diets. potassium softeners are newer, and less proven, I don't know if they have any downsides. Both styles waste a lot of water in the purge cycle.
Is the house plumbing steel, pex or copper ?

[jbigs]

Ok thanks for the info, plumbing is all copper.

[Ian S]

Not sure what your problem could be - colloidal iron might give a cloudy yellow look - but as far as water softeners go, you really don't have to get one specifically for potassium chloride. For example, my Whirlpool unit (similar to Sears and GE) allows use of potassium chloride; all you need to do is set the hardness to a higher level to compensate from the poorer hardness removal efficiency of potassium chloride compared to sodium chloride. If you're concerned about ingesting too much sodium, you could always run a separate cold water line bypassing the softener to give drinking water. Or use a reverse osmosis system for drinking water. IMHO, the slight amount of sodium added to softened water is unlikely to be of concern to folks in good health. Roughly, to get the amount of sodium added to drinking water by a softener, multiply the number of grains per gallon of hardness by 2 to get the number of mg sodium added to an eight oz glass of water. Apparently, according to this article: http://www.purewaterproducts.com/art...-in-soft-water
you'd need to drink about 6 glasses to get the same amount of sodium as you would from a single slice of whole wheat bread. Not very much in the scheme of things.

[silversaver]

Water softener is what you need to reduce calcium deposits. You also need a Reverse Osmosis System for your drinking water.

Get a water hardness test kit, then properly setup your water softener.

you can get a GE water softener at Homedepot or getting a better one with Fleck valve


NONE of that has to do with you water heater.

Depends on your location and water company, then you know if you need any additional filtration system

[jbigs]

Have an RO system, getting a water softener and new anode rods so hopefully it will help!

[wayne23836]

I had something like that but nowhere as bad. Pump repair shop called it iron bacteria. I disinfected the spring box and reservoir with bleach have not had the problem since, been over 20 years.
Google "iron bacteria" and read wikipedia results.

[jbigs]

Ok, thanks I will check it out.