Water Leaves Blue Film

I've noticed that the water in our house leaves a light blue film on some things after a while. So far it is only really noticeable in bathtubs and sinks, since they are nice and near-white. Although it does not seem to be leaving it in toilets, at least not noticeably yet.

We are on a well here. Fairly certain it's a private well, maybe shared with a couple of other houses.

My research seems to indicate this is most likely a higher concentration of copper in the water, either from pipes or in the ground itself. Also that it is more likely showing up in hot water than cold (hence sinks but not toilets).

Anyone have experience with similar issues? Is this something to be concerned about at all? Should I look into sending a sample to a water-quality lab to determine if there are any health risks from my water?

Blue is not a natural color. Even blueberries are friggin purple.

Might want to consider testing.

It's not dark blue. Very light. Sort of like someone spilled Selson Blue in the bathtub and rinsed most of it down the drain, but not quite all.

Test it.

how's it taste?

definatly test it. Blue is not a natural colour

novaderrik wrote: how's it taste?

It tastes good. When I first got here my initial impression is that this is some of the best tap water I've tasted before.

No one in the house (human, cat, or dog) seems to have suffered any kind of nausea, vomiting, or gastrointestinal distress from it.

Since we're renting, whose responsibility is it typically to pay for things? I'm presuming it will be up to us to pay for testing, but that if something is wrong it's on the owners to cover costs to make it right. Seems that providing safe drinking water is something the owners should be expected to do.

it is up to the owner to provide you with safe housing for your money.. so unsafe water falls in his lap

With all due respect, why in the heck would you wait while you wrangle over who is going to pay for it?

Are you saying that you would rather wait until your hootus turns blue and falls off?

It may be his responsibility, but the health and well being of your family is YOUR responsibility. If there is something wrong, he may delay. You should not.

Get it tested right away.

Blue is copper. Fairly normal with hard water and copper pipes. My grandmother house in Pickens SC has had blue stains in the sinks for as long as I can remember. That might have been what killed her at the tender age of 99.

I'd probably still get it tested. There might be a local university extension that does testing in your state. I think Clemson does it around here for next to nothing. The local DHEC probably does it too.

Copper in your water isn't good, could be acidic water eating into the pipes or something. An aunt of mine had an issues with copper in her well water and had to repipe the lines. If you look at metabolic chemistry you'll see how a Cu+2 ion can get into all sorts of places where it shouldn't be, thats what happens with metal poisoning one metal ion is substituded for the correct one.

I've heard some county water departments do it for free, to more accurately map contamination and such.

are you on a municipal water supply well? or a private well. we used to be on a well and had blue staining in a bathtub that always dripped, and when you ran the water full hot it smelled like chlorine. the water company came out to look at it and said that they would look into adjusting the amount of chlorine in the water. some time later, the staining stopped.

BTDT. My dad's house in central GA is on a well, and when he moved there about 20 years ago, every dripping faucet left those same blue stains. As s school science project, I took samples of his water, some municipal water, creek water etc and had it analysed by a friends father who owned a pool store.

It definitely is copper, the blue is a metallic salt that is created by the acidic water eating the copper pipes. Dad continually fought replacing the copper pipes. They would get thin and spring leaks. when he'd take the pipe out it would be like tinfoil, but copper. 20+ years later he has all PVC pipes one piece at a time - no more stains and no more leaks.

IIRC i could never find any info on health problems from the level of copper in his water, and not much info on copper-related ills in general. Anyone who has lived with copper pipes ingests it all the time, you're just getting a slightly higher dose.

Faucet mounted or undersink filters will cut it significantly and might be a financially amenable solution.

BTW, I got runner-up at State level science fair with that project!

Has anyone in the area tested their septic system with dye recently? If so, could the dye have leached into you well? If this is the case, that is not good. But somehow it is also good. Since you would have had no idea it was contaminating the well until the next water quality test, or until someone got sick.

SVreX wrote: With all due respect, why in the heck would you wait while you wrangle over who is going to pay for it?

Not waiting. A brief interwebz search found a CA certified lab right in town. I will be heading over there tomorrow after work or Tuesday at the latest (also need to get to the DMV since my license expires Wednesday). Just wondering whether to give the property management a heads up and ask them if I can have the bill sent to them.

In the meantime I'm going to find the box containing the Brita filter.

Stop drinking out of the toilet.

George Carlin:

"I often wonder why there's no blue food. Every other color in well represented in the food kingdom. And don't bother me with blueberries; they're purple. The same is true with blue corn and blue potatoes. They're purple. Blue cheese? Nice try. It's actually white cheese with blue mold. Occasionally, you might run across some blue Jell-o in a cafeteria. Don't eat it. It wasn't supposed to be blue. Something went wrong."

Actually, it is copper staining as others have mentioned. Copper is an essential for humans (in reasonable amounts) but poisonous to tropical fish and particularly deadly to salt water crustaceans, that's why boat anti fouling paint goes on brown then turns blue. If you have an aquarium, don't use that water unless it's treated to remove copper.

If you do have to get new pipes consider HDPE in place of PVC, much more enviro-friendly.