- 1). Contact your local water supplier to find out if it monitors the level of iron in your water. If it does, find out what the level is. If you do not pay a water bill, contact your building manager or landlord to get the name of your water supplier. If you get your water from a well, have a sample tested. Call your county offices to find out if it has testing services. If not, find a private company that will do the testing.
- 2). Talk with your municipal water supplier about what it is doing to get rid of the iron in your drinking water if you find that the level is greater than the EPA standard. Among the actions the public water suppliers can take are controlling corrosion in the water pipes that connect to your home water supply, removing the contaminants through coagulation/flocculation, filtration and aeration, and blending the water you are now getting with water from a different source.
- 3). Examine your plumbing to determine where the problem might be if you discover that the water being supplied to your home does not meet the EPA's 0.3 mg per liter standard. The source of your rusty water might be rusty, corroded pipes or bacteria in your water heater if you see the rust coming only from hot water taps. If your pipes are corroded, you may need to replace them. If your hot water is rusty but the cold water is not, shocking your water heater with chlorine should eliminate the problem.
- 4). Consider installing a whole-house water filtration system if you find your pipes are good and the rusty water is coming from cold water taps as well as hot. Back-washing iron filters and cartridge-type iron filters are available. The back-washing filters have a higher up-front cost, but lower maintenance costs than the cartridge-type filters that require period replacement. Some water softeners have a rust-removal component that works if the iron contamination is low, so installing a water softener would be another choice.
previous post