Does the water in your tap flow dusty yellow or rust-red? Is there a yellow-to-red stain around every sink drain in the house? Or have your pipes only recently started running rusty water, with the rust coming from goodness-knows-where along the city supplier pipes? For whatever reason you’ve found yourself to this article, chances are that your tap is running rusty iron-rich water.

At this point, you may be wondering what the possible harmful side effects are of living with the rusty water and today, we’re here to share some of the most prominent downsides to allowing rust water to run through your home.

rusty-water

1) Staining Tubs and Laundry

The most obvious and unavoidable downside to rust water in the tap is the staining. Rust is a highly staining substance that will permanently change the color of anything it touches. From your porcelain sink and bathtub to your fresh new laundry. Rust water allowed to sit or soak is even worse and it can be almost impossible to remove the stains left by rust No matter how much you scrub the porcelain or bleach everything afterward. Rust stains can be gnarly and often require you to replace whatever was stained after you find a solution to the rust.

2) Bitter-Tasting Cooking

You may already know this through unfortunate tap water incidents, but rust water is actually a bad idea to cook with as well. While it’s nearly impossible to ingest enough rust water through food to make you feel sick, it does add a distinct an inescapable change in flavor for all things cooked in or with rusty water: bitterness.

Few people enjoy the flavor of bitterness in their meal except, perhaps, for the rare char on a burger or steak. But rust is bitter and when your tap water flows with it, everything made with that tap water will be bitter as well.

3) Damaged Pipes from Iron

But did you know that rust running through your pipes can also damage them? Those little rust particles build up and can contribute to clogs or make your water slightly more corrosive and contribute to slow corrosive leaks. Rust, no matter where it comes from, is bad for your pipes in a serious way. Simply allowing rusty water to come in through your water main is bad for every pipe in your entire house because they are at greater risk of clogging and will decay/corrode faster over time. If you want to keep your home pipes safe, it’s important to have a plan to deal with rusty water.

4) Iron Overexposure

While it’s unlikely you can make yourself sick eating and drinking rust-prepared food and beverages normally, it is possible to drink enough straight rusty water to make yourself sick with iron overexposure. Family members are only at risk of iron-related sickness which can include shortness of breath and vomiting. This is only likely to happen if someone makes a habit of drinking huge glasses of unfiltered water, possibly on conjunction with exercise.

5) Destructive Leaks

Finally, leaks of rust water are almost as dangerous to the outside of your pipes as they are to the inside. While rust inside your pipes can cause clogs, rust leaking slowly out of your pipes can become a serious contributor to ongoing corrosion. Corrosion is when something in the water causes rapid oxidizing decay to the pipes. Rust in the water is more corrosive and can accelerate the rate of any corrosion in your home from minor leaks that is already causing problems.

Is rust running through your tap water? If so, there is something you can do about it. Both water softening and whole-home water filtration can help you get those dangerous flecks of rust out of our water once and for all. For more information, contact us today!