The hot water faucet in my bathtub has black water, not brown but black as if there is black dye in it whenever I turn it on. The cold water does not do this nor does any other faucet in my house. What is causing this?

I don't really know, and it's not my area of expertise, but I do know that the first thing I would do would be to drain the water heater, and flush it, and see if it clears up the problem.

Other than that, I'll let those with expertise in plumbing and water heaters comment.

I know when changing a toilet flapper(after we tampered with it) it will sometimes leave bleed black. Perhaps one of the washers in your faucet(if it has black washers) is bad. Does it have any problems turning off? I doubt it has anything to do with the water heater because its only that faucet and not others that is causing the problem. Sometimes draining the water heater, if its a older one, causes more problems then you want to handle.

Nice catch Adam, I didn't absorb the fact that it was only from the one faucet.

Thanks Adam, you might be right about the washer. This problem did not start until we had a new bathtub installed. We used the existing faucet but new washers were probably put in when the faucet was installed. We will replace the washer and see what happens.
Thanks again for your help and to everyone else who responded.
Jo

Try this on for size...
You may have a bacteria growing in your hot water heater. Not as nasty as it sounds and essentially harmless. Do you notice also an odor of sulphur? Tat would be hydrogen sulfide disolved as a gas in the water, and, in concentration, it can be harmful.
The problem involves the sacrificial anode in the heater also but I can't remember those details exactly.
I realize it's only the tub hot faucet, but still worth mentioning this issue...many times that tell-tale black substance isn't as obvious in other fixtures.
Cure involves a dose of chlorine in the tank followed by a flush.

Let me know if I was right, and good luck

Doug

It is the washers within the hot side of the faucet. They are deteriorating. Hot water is harder on them then the cold side.
Remove the valve and replace it with a new valve insert. Do not forget to replace the valve seat within the valve housing.
If you do, you are wasting your time.
Replace both hot and cold sides.
Cover the bathtub drain before you do anything.
To replace the seat, you will have to buy a special wrench to get the old one out and put the new one in.
It is called a six-step Faucet Seat Wrench. Brass Craft has a one which works well.
The best tool for the job is the correct tool. Therefore, I would suggest also buying a Shower valve socket wrench set.
Keeps the brass valves from stripping.
Do not forget to turn off the water to the faucet before trying to remove the valve.
After you remove the valve from the housing and remove the old valve seat, I would suggest plugging the bathtub drain. Closing off the shower doors or curtains and then turning the water to the faucet back on again for about 15-30 seconds. This will allow the pipes to clear any debris out of the system.
Then after the water is no longer running out of the open valve, replace the new valve seat into the valve body. Now replace the valve. Do not forget to make sure the little screw holding the washer on the end of the valve is tight. If it is loose, I have seen them get stuck in the valve body behind the valve seat.
This screw is made of brass. you cannot fish it out with a magnet. You will have to remove the valve seat again and run water through the open valve to get it out. Do not forget to plug the tub so it does not wash down the drain.
When replacing the valve seat, some nice sticky plumbers puddy is good to help hold the valve seat on the faucet seat wrench.
If anyone else has any ideas for keeping those slippery little buggers on the tool, please jump in.
Dan

thirty years experience plumbing, carpentry, kitchen and bath renovations and auto mechanics.
6 years computer repairs and networking.

I manage the maintenance of apartments and houses and repair computers and networks.
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This message has been edited. Last edited by: northwarden,

Hi, Just a note to let you know, since you said the tub was installed recently and prior to this problem. Was the correct pipe installed? I had the same problem, and found that the wrong piping was used and colored the water for the first few seconds the water ran.
Just a thought...

On a lighter note:
Maybe you should move to Beverley Hills Jed! You may have struck oil! Black gold; Texas tea, as the song says...

But seriously, I used to live in a house with sulfer & the biggest problem with it was the smell of rotten eggs. It made a shower faster. But that smell occurs in both hot & cold water & in all the faucets in the house.

How long have you lived in this house before you had a new tub put in it? If you were there a long time & this problem didn't occur until shortly after the new tub, you may want to call the people who installed it to ask if they used new washers in the old faucets.

Is it just in the faucet to the tub or is the water from the shower black too? That might tell you if the problem is in that faucet or in the lines.

You could have a mineral deposit in the hot water pipes leading to that faucet. Are they copper pipes or plastic? Something may have been loosened from the interior of the pipes while being banged around during installation. Did you have good water pressure there before the new tub? It might have knocked a blockage loose.

You might want to have that water tested. Possibly led. Get a water sample kit from your health department & have the water just from that line tested. They will tell you what it is & if you should worry about it & probably how to fix it. Depending on the age of the house & it's plumbing, you may need to replace some old copper with PVC.

At least with a water test you'll be sure of how safe it is. I think that is the best place to start so you know what you are dealing with.

I'm no plumber but have had a lot to do with building my old house & the addition & repairs on this one. You learn a lot about problems from experience.

I hope by now you may already have the problem solved & fixed. Good luck!

Hey JoJo, I don't know if you corrected your problem but I'm here to say I have the exact same problem. I put a soaker tub in for my wife 8 years ago and she has probably used it 7-8 times. Why?you ask.. it takes 15 mins to fill and she rather not wait. But to our "black" water, I have nylon washers so that's not it. We have municiple well water that when it sits for a lenght of time coats the inside of a bucket with a black film that stinks like sulfer or sewer. It also does it in the inactive plumbing. So if I want clear water for the tub, all that is nessesary is to use it more often. Hope this helps.

quote:

Originally posted by JOJO:
The hot water faucet in my bathtub has black water, not brown but black as if there is black dye in it whenever I turn it on. The cold water does not do this nor does any other faucet in my house. What is causing this?

I strongly recommend you contact the professional who installed the tub faucets (a plumber?) and urge him/her to complete your contract by making sure all is well with the installation.

another thought is a situation i had with a repair a plumer did in my shoer/tub. the incomming last foot of pipe was so rusty that he put in about a 4 ft section of copper to replace the galvinized. at the junction of the existing galvanized and copper he installed an insulator fitting but used the wrong seal. it was common rubber instead of some kind of neoprene or high temp subtance. hence i got rid of my rust but got the decaying black bushing. changed the seal and all is fine. yes you do need to contact the workers that did the job. and ya know their supervisor won't know of anything wrong, find the workperson!
even upgrading your wshers to a higher heat quality when you do change them will make them last longer. go to a real plumbing store for parts

One thought on your black water is you may have Hydrogen Sulfide in the water. Does the water smell like sulfur when the bath water is run? The symptoms sound just like what we have in our water. The clorine is disolved by the sulfer and then the black water starts to build up. Do a google search on Aloha Utilities and you will see alot of documents concerning Hydrogen Sulfide in their water ... which has been proven by their customers.

Might as well throw my 2 cents in, but not much new.

We live on a lake with a community well (not municiple, but feeds about 200 houses) and our black water is fine sediment coming in the house with the well water. Most of us have whole house water filters, changed about every 6-12 mos.

Problem is only apparent when filling the bathtub, in essence because you have such a large amount of water collected and displayed in a large, clean, white bowl. Also, tub valves fill the tub quickly, flushing large amounts of water through the pipes.

Remove the lid and check the bottom of your toilet tank, is black residue collected in the bottom of the tank? You know it's a water source problem if the cold water used to fill the toilet has the problem also (it settles out of the water in the tank when standing still).

Hot water only? most likely culprit is water heater. Bad washers in faucet normally won't shed enough black stuff on consistent basis, and usually deteriorate in chunks. Using a short section of black iron pipe instead of galvanized to hook up the tub faucet would cause a burst of rust and crud when first operated, but then clear up after a few seconds.

If it's water heater, try a simple fix first. Connect a garden hose to the drain on the water heater and flush it out for about 30 minutes. One new construction house I had had the smelliest, dirty water in the water heaters upon move-in. 30 minutes of flushing each did the trick. Good luck.

Jojo, I have had the same problem on several occassions over 5 years, it corrects itself. I started with the hot water faucet in the kitchen and within days it was apparent in any sink that was filled with clear clean water. I called out the local Water District technicians. The first thing they suggest is of course, worn washers deteriating - hey, my house is new. Then they suggested error in seals put in wall or underground plumbing when house was built - very possible. Thirdly, they said it is often caused in homes next to fire hydrants - that's us. When the fire department checks the hydrant, we get a back up of black dyed water temporarily - of course no one will say what it is, only that is a frequent occurance. This has happened 3 times in 5 years for short periods of time lasting under 10 days.

The reason for the dirty water when the fire department runs the hydrants is probably because they are flowing so much more water per minute than it does on a regular basis. The extra flow cleans the pipe, which is why they do it in the first place. You probably just get a little bit of the dirt that decided to hide during the flushing.

Just wanted to add a comment...when hydrants are flushed (our town does annually in the overnight hours), the high volume and pressure clean out our old iron water mains like a steel brush would, sending rust and loosened deposits to the end of the line where the hydrant is. Although a lot of that water is run out of the hydrant, the remaining sediment in the line will always run to the hydrant for a few days afterward, and the area homes will get the discolored water. This is also true when there is a water main break (many in the cold northeast with old water systems), and some sediment from the soil around the broken pipe could get in as well. We also saw this problem when the town reversed flow direction for some neighborhoods while repairing gate valves in the mains.

A black water problem, if you find it happening in the washer or toilet, can occur when the water has too much manganese and mixes with bleach. An area of our town is serviced by a muni well that was over-pumped years ago and started to draw the manganese from the soil. Some residents in that area of town complained of black water in the toilet. After advising them to take the toilet cleaning tabs that contain bleach out of their toilet tanks and not use bleach in the laundry, the problem went away.

One last thought...after the hydrant-flushing or break, as a customer service rep for a muni system, I would get calls from residents complaining that the pressure was much worse in their homes. I would ask them to try the pressure at the bathroom faucet, and if that was fine, I knew the filter at the kitchen faucet was the problem. I would explain that the filter is usually not on a bathroom faucet, and that if pressure is reduced in only one area then it cannot be a permanent issue from work being done in the street. The problem is inside the home, in this case sediment filling the filter on the end of the kitchen faucet. I instructed them in how to remove and clean it, and that took care of the pressure problem.

There usually is a filter on the bathroom faucet unless you have a very old style faucet. The best bet is when you suspect you might have dirt in the water(hydrant flushes, broken water main repaired, etc) is to either run water out of your outside spigot or to run it through your bathtub spigot. Some bathtubs have screens and some don't. Make sure it doesn't. If you can't use either of those, remove the screen from the faucet you want to use and run the cold water only and wait for all the dirt to flow through.

Also remember sometimes if a small rock is in the line it can get stuck in the valve just before the faucet and will cause a loss of pressure(which is harder to figure out).