oily taste in galvanized pipe. How to best remove it?

[~^Johnny^~]

[Duane Bozarth]

David Jensen wrote: ....

Woulda' done it , if at all. Let it run, it'll eventually go away as there's no practical way once it's installed. I suppose you could take the faucet/fixture off the top and use a stiff rod w/ some scrubbing arrangement, but I'd not bother...

[anoldfart2]

A few minutes of flushing is not going to do anything. Flush it for a full day or more. And rather than waste the water, rig a hose onto it, and water the lawn. Galvanized pipe has been used for many years, and they always used cutting oil. Flush Flush Flush.....

You remind me of my neighbor who put a downpayment on a property that had been vacant for nearly 20 years, thus the drilled well had not been used in 20 years. This guy said he would complete the purchase of this property if the well water was safe. He ran the well pump for

5 to 10 minutes, took a water sample to be tested. The test came back saying the water was bad. He almost declined the purchase because of it. He called a plumber to discuss the cost of drilling a new well, which he was going to use to negotiate the price of the property. The plumber told him to run the water for 3 days straight. Suddenly the water was safe....... DUH !!!

[David Jensen]

I put a drinking fountain on the end of a 4' prethreaded galvanized pipe from Home Depot. I used the galvanized so that it would stand up on its own in the yard. The 4' galvanized pipe is fed with PVC. The water from the drinking fountain head continues to taste oily even though I've flushed it with several minutes of water. I'm pretty sure that the oily taste is from oil in the pipe when I bought it at HD. I think it gets the oil in in from cutting the threads in on each end of the pipe.

What should I do to remove the oily taste from the pipe? It seems like disassembling it and putting some kind of bottle brush and soap would be quite an effort. There must be better way. How would a plumber do it?

Thanks.

[Sacramento Dave]

that far order a piece of stainless steel pipe or Type K cooper.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

He'd disassemble it and put some kind of bottle brush and soap in it. Aside from letting the water run for a long time, there really is no other solution. It will eventually go away but could take many gallons of water.

[Robert Barr]

I replaced some pipe to my sink for the hard (drinking) water outlet, using galvanized pipe from HD. Chinese import. The water that would stand in the pipe overnight always, always smelled and tasted horrible. Very strong smell & taste.

I pulled the length of pipe (2 feet, I think) and scrubbed it with a shotgun cleaning brush and some dish soap. Rinsed thoroughly. Reinstalled. No help.

After two months, I gave up and replaced the galvanized with PVC.

I realize the PVC isn't an option for you, but perhaps a different source for your galvanized or iron pipe would do it. I had never had problems like this with galvanized before.

[Norminn]

clipped

It may be wise for the OP to replace the galvanized and everything beyond it, as the oil will have coated what it touched on it's way out. Yuck. Given that it could be coated with waste oil, it may not be the healthiest stuff to ingest.

[anoldfart2]

That makes no sense to me. The dish soap should have cleaned it right out.

[Craven Morehead]

Cutting oil is an acquired taste. Be patient and experiment with various foods until you find some that go well with the oil.