White particles in tap water

Hi,

I have greenish white particles in the tap water from my kitchen sink. From my research online it felt similar to the ones due to water heater dip tube issue . I checked it in Vinegar and it isn't dissolving - so most likely that seems like plastic and it looks like egg shell pieces (small). Having said that, the heater in the home is from 2005 and this seems to be happening only in the kitchen sink. I tried it from bathroom faucets and I don't see similar particles. I presume if it was water heater it would be in all the faucets in the home. Since it is from 2005, most likely the dip tube issue should've been resolved. The kitchen sink has a pull out faucet and I am wondering if that also has some plastic tubing that could cause this?

Any other ideas to narrow this down? Maybe I should drain the heater just to double check? Thanks for your help.

Are you on city water or on a well?

Is this showing up from hot and cold faucets or only hot?

We are on city water.

In the kitchen sink it seems to happen on cold. I haven't tried on hot too long to see if that changes. As I mentioned earlier, I tried the other faucets in the bathrooms and there aren't any particles there.

Years ago Sta Rite had a pump that after a few months the impellers would shread and cause what your seeing, but since your on City water, that obviously isn't your problem. We called them shred-o-matics.

Do you have copper, Galvanized, or plastic water piping? Greenish white sounds like copper phosphate. If you have metal water piping, I would check for impact damage to the pipes that feed that set of faucets that could have knocked some of the coating loose.

Other things to look for if you have metal piping is a change in water chemistry (like change in pH or related), pressure shock, or ???

If you have plastic, then the above comments wont apply. You might want to collect a few of the particles and dry them out. If they are plastic, you shouldn't see any porosity. Throw them under a really good magnifier and see if it looks like mineral deposits or plastic pieces.

Hope this helps.

Quick update -- drained the water heater and the water was clean, so guessing it rules out any potential for drip pipe issue. Removed the water faucet connections under the sink and ran a bit of water directly from there using new pipes and did not see any material. So I think it is narrowed down to either a part of the faucet or the hose. Next step is to probably take the faucet apart and then either replace it or narrow down to a particular part.