Brown water from outside hydrant?

[legbuh]

Hello.

This fall we finished up a shop that is about 200 feet away from our house, a slight down grade. We also tapped the main water line (from our well) and T-d it off to install an outside freezeless water hydrant by the shop. It is about 75 feet from where it was t'd to the hydrant, also downhill from the house on a slight grade.

Now when I use the water in the hydrant it runs for about 20 seconds, then turns brownish, and clears up in about 2 minutes.

My wife said that if she is running water in the house when I turn on the outside hydrant, it stops almost all water in the house for a few seconds, and sometimes the water appears also brown for a couple seconds in the house (mainly the cold water).

Is this just something we have to deal with, or did maybe the installers who t'd the water line skip a step? It's really not that big of a deal, but it helps if I can explain what's happening to the wife. I assume it's backflushing the line when I use the outside hydrant. And over time it may not be "as brown".

Thanks.

[The Reverend Natural Light]

My parents had a shop built between their house and well. To get water to it, the builder ran a new line from the house back to the shop. I wondered why they didn't just T the line from the well (since they cut it with a dozer anyways) rather than go all the way back with a new line. Water doesn't care which way it's running out of the header tank, right?

You might have found out why.

I'll bet the brown water is just stirred up gunk from inside the pipe and will go away after a while. The loss of water pressure is a design problem.

[timbirr]

If you are seeing a discoloration, just to be safe, you have better have a bacteriological test run on the water...

[timbirr]

As a PS, you should have the water tested anytime you work on the water system anyway.

[nick hull]

I concur. In my system the water travels 400' from the spring to the house, and while the water is perfectly clear the pipe will slowly build up silt deposits. Once a year I drain the pipe and then turn on the pump and let it free flow thru an outside (full diameter) faucet. The enclosed air from draining the pipe acts like gravel in stirring up the deposited silt and the water will be brown for a few seconds then clear up. Perfectly normal.

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