Okay, so the other day I noticed something weird with my water. I turned on the tap, and boom – yellow water! Not cool. My well is pretty old, so I figured something was up, and I needed to fix it, fast.
Figuring Out the Yellow Water Problem
First thing I did was run the water for a bit. Sometimes, if you haven’t used a faucet in a while, you get a bit of rusty water at first. But this? This kept going. Yellow, yellow, yellow. No change.
Next, I checked all the taps in my house. Bathrooms, kitchen, outside – everywhere. Yep, all yellow. So, it wasn’t just one pipe, it was the whole system. That told me it probably wasn’t something simple like a single corroded pipe.
I called up my neighbor, Bob. He’s got a well too, and he’s a bit of a handyman. I asked, “Hey Bob, my water’s yellow, any ideas?”. He came over, and we started brainstorming.
Checking the Well Itself
We went outside and looked at the wellhead. Everything looked okay – no obvious cracks or anything. We took the cap off and shined a flashlight down. I couldn’t see much, but Bob said it looked relatively normal. Not super helpful, but at least it wasn’t something totally obvious.
Testing the Water (The Not-So-Scientific Way)
Bob had this idea to let the water run for a really long time, like an hour, to see if it cleared up. We turned on the outside hose full blast. We figured if it was just sediment, maybe it would flush out. We sat on the porch, watched, and…nothing. Still yellow.
Talking to More People and Getting Different Water filters
So, Bob and I were stumped.
I even went online and searched on some forums, and it seemed like a lot of folks had a similar issue at some point. Some suggested a water softener issue, some said iron bacteria (gross!), and others thought it might be tannins from decaying leaves or something getting into the well.
My softener is old, I replaced it with a new one.
Then,I installed a sediment filter first, thinking it might catch any particles. No dice, still yellow.
Next, I tried a carbon filter. Those are supposed to be good for taste and odor, and sometimes they help with color. Still yellow!
Finally, I got this special iron filter. It’s designed to remove iron and manganese, which can cause staining. I hooked it up, crossed my fingers, and…BINGO! Clear water!
Finally Got Clear Water!
It turned out, in my case, to be an iron issue, after all that testing and checking, It took a while, and it was a bit of a pain, but I finally got it sorted. Now I can shower without looking like I’ve been swimming in a swamp, and hopefully it can help you figure out this problem too.
