Thread: Water changing colour

Hi!

My house's tap water is surely contaminated with metal, because one can easily feel the metallic smell.
Curiously, the water still is transparent. However, when I heat such water in the microwave, the water acquires an orange tonality. Does any of you have an explanation to such phenomenon?

The water has turned into orange juice! Armageddon is upon us all!

What are your pipes made of? Old houses can have pipes made of lead, iron etc over time the water can wear,away at the pipes and small particles can fall into the water eventually this normally unoticable change in the water can become easily visible. Lime being a prime example lime in water is normally not seen but when boiled the water in thr kettle forms a white precipitate or scale on the bottom. maybe iron rust which can turn orange. Rusty Water Gets Montgomery Residents RIled Up. Maybe check yourself for heavy metal poisoning if you have been drinking the water.

Originally Posted by Skrith

Hi!

My house's tap water is surely contaminated with metal, because one can easily feel the metallic smell.
Curiously, the water still is transparent. However, when I heat such water in the microwave, the water acquires an orange tonality. Does any of you have an explanation to such phenomenon?

As others have said I'd strongly recommend getting your water checked by the water company as soon as possible. They should be happy to do this - I got ours checked free of charge, within a matter of days, when I found we had a section of lead pipe.

An orange colour suggests to me iron hydroxides. I had a discussion with someone else recently about iron chloride going from pale green to rusty brown on exposure to air and the answer turned out to be that Fe ³⁺ abstracts OH⁻ from water, to produce iron hydroxides. Something similar may possibly be going in your case, but it is not possible to be definitive. If this is water you drink, I'd get it checked out pronto.

Iron came to my mind immediately as well, but the funny thing is I only notice the colour change when I heat the water. Still, I have to perform the same experiment with a control to understand if the change of colour is due to the temperature or air contact.

did you try completely boiling the water and looking at whats left in the pot?

Sounds like galvanized iron pipes rusting away.

When was your house built?

Rusty pipes ?

Just to eliminate possiblities: heat some of the water in a different container, heat some bottled water in the same cotainer you used when you first noticed the color change,. Is this well water or from the city mains?