Friday, May 3, 2024

When Your Water Turns Yellow

A week or two after we moved in to the new house the water was coming out of the tap clear and after a few hours turning light yellow.  Second semester freshman chemistry involved memorizing the color of all the oxidation states of transition metals (and that is as hard as it sounds).  I remembered that yellow was one of the iron colors.   +2? +3?  That was 40+ years ago.   But one of them was yellow.  Googling established that ferrous iron +2 comes out clear then yellows on exposure to oxygen.  There is a monstrous reverse osmosis/ozone generator that is supposed to remove iron.  

There are also two 10" long filters in the sequence: one carbon; one pleated paper for 30 micron grit.  Both were lovely shades of yellow and reddish brown.  It appears that the big canister did as much as it could and ferrous iron was slipping past.

A call to the local Kinetico dealer got us replacement filters and the water now stays clear.

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