Strange sediment in our water, please help.

[tyler m]

I've been researching for weeks and cannot seem to find the answer to this issue. Anyway, I'll spell it all out.

Our area has super hard water, so last year I installed a GE water softener, GE whole house sediment filter and I installed a new hot water heater on that same day because our old one had so much sediment.

Since installing everything, we have been getting a ton of black and white sediment in our shower which has been causing the shower heads to become clogged and one even broke. It gets so bad that if I leave the filter screen in the shower head, barely any water comes out because it gets clogged. It also appears to be happening with our bathroom sink faucet. My city is town water and from the main supply I have it going into the whole home sediment filter and then into the softener. The softener is definitely working because I notice a difference in the feel of our water. The filter also appears to be working because it gets brown every few months prior to changing it.

The sediment feels like sand when it comes out and when it collects on the bottom of the tub it almost looks like black pepper. There are also pieces that are white or translucent that feel like sand. I'll post pictures below.

I'm trying my very best to avoid hiring a plumber because we're expecting our first child in the next two weeks and money is super tight.

Thanks to anyone that can help with suggestions.

Pics in spoiler

Spoiler

 

[Geofd]

Not sure but how about a wye strainer after the filters
It a brass fitting that looks like the letter y it let’s water thru but there is a screen inside that filters small stuff ha a fitting you can loosen to remove and lean the screen

 

[Helper Dave]

Have you tried flushing your water heater to see if it's coming from there? Lotta how to videos available on that, and it's pretty easy to do.

Do you have a recirculation line on your water heater at all? Those can kick stuff up sometimes.

What kind of water lines do you have, and what's the state of them?

Could be from the water softener, too, if it was faulty on installation.

Might take a little detective work to figure out, but all that's worth looking at.

 

[tyler m]

Have you tried flushing your water heater to see if it's coming from there? Lotta how to videos available on that, and it's pretty easy to do.

Do you have a recirculation line on your water heater at all? Those can kick stuff up sometimes.

What kind of water lines do you have, and what's the state of them?

Could be from the water softener, too, if it was faulty on installation.

Might take a little detective work to figure out, but all that's worth looking at.

Thanks for your reply.

I may look into flushing, but being that it was a brand new water heater installed the same day as the softener (everything was installed only 6 months ago), do you think that would be the issue since the water heater has never really had hard water since?

We do not have a recirculation line.

The whole house is PEX, which was installed during a flip in 2017 and they appear to be in good shape.

 

[themarkg]

Black specs could be tank metal, white specs could be calcium or plastic (dip tue). You can check if the white particles are calcium by disolving on acid or vinegar. However, you changed your tank and you have PEX so it's shouldn't be either. I wonder if there are elbows and bends in you water line where sediment/metal/calcium settled and it's coming out. My suggestion is to connect a hose to an outlets eg. washer hot water (or shower) and flush the system for 15-30 minutes. Let the water pass through a striner to capture debris to inspect.

I have had a lot of calcium issues in my home. I replaced tanks but it was still in my kitchen and utility hot water. So it was in the water lines. I installed a 3M Aqua-Pure cartidge on the incoming line into the hot-water tank. It's been about 2 years and I can say that now, finally, it my taps don't get clogged every couple of days. I also flushed my hot water lines by making a contraption of hoses and a pond pump to recirculate vinegar through my hot water lines. It did clear qite a bit of scale out of the pipes but not all.