i've notices some black hard bits (look like gravel but smaller) in my tub these couple of days and i think they come out of the shower. i'm worried there are leaks on the sewer drain pipe and on clean water pipe (that i use water from it to have shower) and the waste from sewer drain water can get into the clean water pipe and make the shower water contaminated. do you think that possible? I'm really worried because i have a 1.5 year old baby in the house and there are lots of harmful viruses and bacterias in sewage !
Water pipes are pressurized, sewer pipes are not. Sewer will not leak into a pressurized pipe. Black stiff can be sediment, sand, rock, minerals in the water.
yes, we get a black residue which builds up on the inside of water pipes and can become small grits to plug the shower head. whenever we get any work done we have to flush the pipes to get it back to clear. it is harmless.
remove the shower head and run the water full blast to flush out the pipe once in a while.
if the hot water heater is not a self-cleaning model it may also be a good idea to flush the hot water heater out once in a while too (make sure it is unplugged or turned off before emptying and flushing it out). i usually turn ours off, take a shower and do some laundry so that the hot water is not going to waste and then flush it out.
ONly the shower? What about the bathroom and kitchen sinks, what about the toilet? Sometimes when a leak is fixed anywhere upstream from your house dirt gets in the pipes and it takes a couple hours or longer to be flushed out, through customers faucets.
No, not possible. The bits have nothing to do with your sewer.
Unless you have a small tank or a big shower and washing machine, there may be still plenty of hot water left in the tank.
At any rate, even the people here who think flushing the bottom of the water heater is a good idea, and many don't for more than one reason, even they think it's only worth flushing out a couple quarts or a gallon, not the whole tank. (In fact if you check and there is no sediment, or no more sediment, coming out, there is no point to draining more out of the tank. If there is enough to warrant draining, I would think you would see the sediment in the water. I don't know. I've been here 33 years and never flushed a tank.)
It also depends on the water where you live. I had to change a water heater that was about 6 years old iirc, and I cut it open to see what was inside. Only about a tablespoon of sediment. At that rate, it would have taken hundreds of years for the sediment to build up enough reach the electric heating element. Other areas may have more sediment. IIUC if you have a gas water heater, the heater is outside the tank, so the sediment will never reach it.
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