Why does the water from my faucet have white bits in it?

Question

They are small specs that I can grind into powder in my fingers. They don't appear to be mixing into my water (like soap or salt or some other saturation). They are coming out of my kitchen sink faucet, though my wife says she's seen them come out of the tub faucet, too.

1. What could it be?
2. Will I die if I injest it?

Thanks!

Answer 1

This white substance could be bits of mineral deposits made up of mineral like calcium that is found in hard water, you can find that stuff in the bottom of your tea kettle.
That mineral content builds up in pipes and eventually with the motion of the water, water hammer, etc, the particles can break off and end up in your water glass. If you have copper piping in the house at times the particles can even be a very light pale greenish colour from the copper, or brownish, even reddish, from iron, depending upon the mineral content of the water.
If you have old lead pipes in the house, better get them changed. Some water jurisdictions used lead water pipes from the street to the house. It is important that you find out where the material is coming from, especially if it happens to be lead compounds.

Try taking the strainers off of the taps and clean them thoroughly. Flush the tap well, put the strainers in CLR or vinegar and dissolve any material off of them. Run the water for at least 10 minutes and check it again.

If that doesn't solve the problem, get the water source tested for hardness. If you live close to a water treatment plant you could be getting alum floc (something like little snowflakes of alum in the water) suggesting that there could be a problem with filtration and treatment at the water plant. The water treatment plant WILL want to know if that is happening. They would have to flush out the water mains and correct the problem.

DO address the issue, take some samples, get them tested and find out what is happening.
You won't die from it if it is mineral from the water, or from the pipe. It is unhealthy to drink water that has a high Alum content (aluminum compounds) and if it is from lead pipes, it can be VERY unhealthy over the long term.

Answer 2

How old is your hot water tank? typically these white particles are a result of the inflow tube in your hot water tank is disintegrating. if the tank is not that old, you, or a plumber could disconnect your tank and replace the inflow tube (on the cold water side) as log as there is not a lot of piping above the tank it is a fairly simple job that would only take a few hours. If the tank is very old it wouldn't be worth it to replace the tube just replace the tank. As complicated as this may sound it is really not that bad. we have run into this where I work with some regularity and I can say with 90% ccertainty that this is probably the source of your white particles.

Answer 3

This sounds like nothing more then calcium from the buildup in the pipes. There's not much you can do about this other then changing your pipes to copper, like I did.

You can make sure you have good screens on the end of your water faucets to catch these particles, that's about all. They're not harmful.

Answer 4

I WOULD NOT injest it.
call someone to check it out.