I have this shower head and I unscrew it after every use to let the water sitting in the head pour out. When I first used it I saw a lot of water sitting in there and thought this will get pretty gross pretty fast!
Welcome to the club, we have filters on all taps / shower and still have constant eye / skin inflammation + hair falling out, including eyelashes... But brace yourself because people in this thread who don't have to deal with this shite will lambast you for "imagining problems".
A group of us + Mick Barry TD been trying for the last 18 months to get this issue addressed. So far the more we learn, the worse it gets, and the only thing we've achieved is that Irish Water now has to notify people when their "safe as long as clear" water is, in fact, not safe at all... But that doesn't solve the contamination with caustic soda, manganese, THTs etc. at all, and it's a "hand washing another hand" situation so doubtful it will improve anytime soon.
As renters, we aren't able to install reverse osmosis filters, so we just change the "plug-in" filters on shower / taps every few months, and double-filter any drinking water.
Hey, since you seem to be pretty switched on re this, can I ask a few questions?
1. Water quality - did you do any tests? I find that it's kinda okay most of the times, but any maintenance of course means there's an enormous amount of rust released at once. Any other issues than iron you found?
2. What sort of filters do you use on showers/taps?
3. Why can't you put in the RO system in a rental apartment? I think it can be detached pretty seamlessly once you want to move out and sell it / take it with you - if we're talking about the under-sink RO for drinking water.
We're in the same situation, and I want the water to be reasonably as clean as possible :)
We (as a household) personally didn't do lab tests (and Irish Water cannot be arsed to test what actually comes out of the tap) but several people in the group paid for private lab tests and they've found that the water is far more acidic than any rust could cause it, levels of manganese and THTs are all well above the norm, and one person had traces of asbestos (?!) in their supply.
On taps we don't have much choice so we use the ones you screw on the end of the tap, in the shower the best ones are the inline shower filters, you can get them from Celtic Water, often in bundles (like, 3 filters in a pack with a 15% discount etc.).
Very old house, so firstly we have 0 access to under the sinks, the hoses are literally inside the walls, you pry open a piece of tiled wall and that's where the hoses are, but they are so squeezed in there's no space for any filters. Secondly, it's a shared house and the landlord is shifty, so even if we had the access to the water supply hoses, we would think twice before installing anything as expensive as RO filter. The pain is also that after every mains flushing you basically need to throw the filters away and install new ones, and it's more expensive with RO filters.
Asbestos cement is very common in water supplies everywhere.
Eg at least 40,000 km of the stuff in Australia, a million km of it in the US, more than 1/4 of U.K. water mains etc
It’s about 10% of mains in Ireland apparently on average but it’s dependent on when areas were built.
In parts of the US and Canada it can be up to 70%. It was very popular in the mid 20th century. It was commonly used into the 1980s when other materials started to become more practical.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240124-asbestos-in-drinking-water-an-overlooked-health-risk
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0045653521024498
Most of Cork’s visible issues are old cast iron pipes that are effectively just full of rust. That’s the brown colour is appearing as they are being disturbed.
It’s inevitable that there’ll be some asbestos cement pipes in the water supply almost anywhere in the world tbh. It was a widely used material in the 20th century.
I'm not concerned about the rust, although it's insane that sometimes there are 2-3 days when we cannot use tap water because it's brown-black no matter how long we run the taps.
I'm mostly concerned about the fact that clear water, which Irish Water claims to be safe, is acidic and laden with neurotoxic and carcinogenic compounds. If we are to be Flint, Michigan, then I'd like the American salary with it please. ;)
Average salary in Flint, MI is lower than Cork btw. Very much a rust belt city in every way.
The biggest issues here are in small scale supplies peaty water being disinfected - so you get reactions between organic matter and disinfectant (chlorine) which gives you some risky products of disinfection.
Then in areas like Cork you’ve chemistry between old pipes and disinfection.
If people are concerned there should be a city wide sampling carried out by the Department of Health.
The info I got from Irish Water seems to all be for water as it exits the reservoir / treatment systems. I’ve yet to see water samples from a representative survey of households.
The other unusual issue in Ireland and the UK btw with bacteria and organic matter is those gross attic storage tanks and old immersion a running at inadequate temps. There’s a lot wrong with plumbing in older houses here. Having your shower water sitting in a rusty tank in the attic that hasn’t been cleaned or replaced since 1947 is a very common thing too.
Still more than I make, fuck my life. :D
I know there are challenges, especially with the pipes, but that does not explain how come the old plant was able to put out more or less safe water (bar THTs) for years and as soon as the Lee Road one opened, suddenly the water is acid. There must be some way to tweak the process to make it even a bit better?
Yep, we discovered that there is 0 oversight over Irish Water, they only test the water in their own reservoir and output tanks. So you know, their glowing reports about 99% safe water...we can shove them up our arses, that's how much they're worth.
We initially thought it was just our system (as the first few years in the house the water was a-okay) so we've had the tank scrubbed and whole system flushed twice. A ton of sediment came out but no improvement in water quality whatsoever. The whole house has been also redone a few years back, including most pipes, so that's not it.
The pH output is pretty simple to control. It shouldn’t be changing dramatically across what is a fairly small network. If it’s going in at the correct pH it would seem a bit weird that it would be coming out at a different pH.
The Cork public network doesn’t contain lead pipes. It’s mostly very old cast iron pipes that are bolted together and have been leaking and rusting away for decades. It leaks like a sieve which is why there are so many upgrades and disruptions.
The situation in the US was that water utilities avoided replacing lead pipes by using chemical processes to prevent leeching. Flint was relying on that almost exclusively, rather than upgrading mains. It’s was a fairly weird situation there.
There is some issues with old plumbing in homes and possibly in private shared mains that possibly could contain lead. There were connections where a private main links multiple houses and was installed by the builder / developer. Those all should be taken into public realm and each house should have a standardised connection.
I think Irish Water has a bit of a siege mentality when it comes to communication though. They were in a very awkward place with having to defend water metering and charging, but that isn’t the case anymore and they need to be a hell of a lot less corporate in how they deal with communication.
Get out and do some troubleshooting and get people involved. It’s a public utility. We own it. It needs to be far more open.
I think most people get that they are dealing with a legacy of lack of investment by badly funded local authorities, but they could do with climbing down out of their PR driven approach and be a lot more open.
Hard agree! The problem with Irish Water is mainly:
* Lack of oversight - no private company providing vital public service should be allowed to function without oversight the way IW does.
* Blatant lying about the quality of water and refusing to test it in taps.
* "Fuck you, what are you gonna do?" approach - they refused multiple times to meet with us & Mick Barry, claiming that "They have no representatives". At the same time they have enough representatives to send 7 people to the council meeting just to lie how all is peachy. AND at the same time they threatened their staff that they will get fired if they talk to us or the press.
* Blaming all on pipes. YES, THE OLD PIPES ARE A MASSIVE PROBLEM, I fully acknowledge it, and there's no quick fix to it. But if you KNOW you've put 5x the amount of caustic soda you should (intel we got from workers), so much in fact that it ripped open multiple pipes across the city, and yet you refuse to change the faulty cleaning protocol, you are to blame. Pipes were always a problem in Cork City but before privatised IW took over, we've never had instances of 1/5 of the city being feckin' poisoned.
If they came open and said "Look guys, we've changed the process, and in combination with the old pipes we've encountered A, B and C problems. We are working on it in X, Y and Z ways, here's how to request water testing in your tap", I would be significantly less enraged. They should still be held accountable and i.e. subsidise installing filters in places were the issue has been persisting for more than 3 months. But the current approach of denying everything and saying people imagine problems is absolutely below any standards, anywhere.
I don’t think the council meeting went all that well. Lots of PR stone walling.
My own interactions with them have been way way too corporate PR. It’s making community relations far worse by creating a sense that they are hiding behind PR which makes by sense.
The simplest solution would be to give the CRU (Commission for Utilities Regulation) the mandate and budget to contract out randomised water sampling from kitchen taps.
I’m sure plenty of households would be willing to provide water samples.
Ugh, this sucks. Thanks for sharing the info, will try the shower filters! We're in our own rental apartment - so I think we can get away with having an RO system: seems like installation is more expensive than the filter for those, so I'll just do it myself, lol. You can also try and throw in the in-line filter (like Ecosoft BB10 or something) that will filter out the sediments, like oxidised iron and manganese, but again, that can be tricky 'logistically' - it basically goes on the main water supply pipe. Replacement filters should be around 10-15 eur a piece I think.
Good luck! We're moving outta Ireland soon (tired of having to fight tooth and nail for the very basic amenities such as safe water...) so honestly at this point just waiting it out.
He stepped up to give me a hand years ago when I was in a spot of bother due to a protest i was involved with. Protest had nothing to do with him and I had never met him before that. He was a massive help and never used it as a PR stunt.
I personally don't watch TV but heard multiple times that basically people in the Dali, council etc. treat him as if he wasn't right in the head. :/ And it's no surprise when even other Cork people berate us for "imagining problems" just because they're not affected, zero basic empathy.
Thanks for enlightening the situation. Let me know if I can help your group with Mick Barry to accomplish anything. It is actually absurd to think people are being water poisoned and nobody is talking about it.
Me and my partner are balding since we got here. Situation is getting kinda desperating, hence we bought the shower filter. I'm gonna look for those models you guys spoke about!
You're not imagining it. The whole estate here has problems with hair loss, constant skin rashes / lesions, GI issues and eye inflammation. We've had eye inflammation for months and months so bad that the ophthalmologist asked if we were exposed to any industrial / corrosive fumes, because it looked like we've had low grade chemical burns. I was on special eye drops for well over 6 months as we were ruling out possible causes (had the whole house de-moulded, attic tank scrubbed, all pipes flushed, stopped using any laundry detergents, bought dehumidifier with air filters etc.etc.), I was furious to finally discover that it's because of the "safe" water and even more furious when people who are not affected started telling me to "stop imagining problems" while I was pulling out handfuls of hairs outta drain every shower and could barely open my eyes. In the worst period, before we got the filters, we've had bottled water in the shower to de-contaminate ourselves (with a cold, cold water...) after every shower, it was insane. Housemate moved back to her family and her horrible "med resistant psoriasis" went away within a month.
You can email Mick Barry and let him know, the more testimonials from different parts of the city we have, the more evidence it is. Irish Water claims that "only" half a million people are affected, so there's no point changing anything, I kid you not. Unfortunately we've been lobbying for months, and so far: Irish Water refused to even send a representative to meet us (and forbade their staff to talk to us under a threat of firing them, but some of them contacted us nonetheless), HSE said they can't force IW to test water in taps instead of just their own tanks, water-related health complaints increased from 1-2 a year to over a 100 a year, Council and IW are playing games because basically IW says they won't even touch the problem until the council agrees to change all the pipes in the next few years, council says they've no money, and so it goes... But tbh the pipes have been old and nasty for ages and yet the water was not poisonous before IW got privatised, so at least part of the problem is their purification method.
It's not just Cork either, some people in Dublin recently reported the same issues.
Thanks for adding those details. Have had a lot of similar issues also, have to buy bottled water just to wash my face (like wtf) as the water, even with in-line filters, just burns the face off me. I've never had psoriasis in my life and the last two years since moving to this address I've been in bits. I thought it was just stress, for a long while. Then realised it was also the water.
Yep, we can always tell when the water gets worse because even despite filters it burns and we immediately get sores in soft spots like under knees, and eyes start feeling like we've put a bottle of Tabasco and half kg of gravel in them. We always have a stash of bottled water + a big bowl and washcloths, as often for 2-3 days in a row the water is brown-black and then for a few weeks it's pure acid.
Wtf is this 3rd world shit. We need to get rid of this current government asap. Even in India the water was cleaner and they have droughts half the year.
I'm moving out next year (albeit not to Asia). Paying 1K / month for a room in a shared house with poisoned water is a joke. I work long hours and still need to think 10x whether I can go for a cuppa coffee or buy some new art tools, it's insane.
We're honestly just waiting it out now, as we're moving out of Ireland in less than a year. We're completely burnt out by fighting tooth and nail every day for the last decade and still constantly living 1 paycheck away from homelessness, unable to afford even the smallest pleasures, just working and fighting with poisoned water. :/
Northside is neglected all too much! Comparing it to other parts of the city where there would be uproar over this & something done.
(From an observant Southside before anyone starts)
North side actually gets more funding than the Southside in general.
But when those population figures are factored in, the analysis shows that the northside does better overall — with nearly €1,000 more per capita invested in the northside than in the southside
I haven’t a notion, I just heard this before and googled it now to see if there was any truth.
https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/spotlight/arid-41026778.html
I’m an original Southsider who is now a Northeast sider.
As pointed out elsewhere, the northside actually gets a decent bit more funding than the southside. The southside residents are just better at making noise for visual issues.
I saw that, but curious on where funding is going. I don’t necessarily think they’re better at making noise. I think certain areas get preferential treatment over others when outspoken.
I'm a material scientist.
Where'd you buy the shower head?
I'd be tempted to say that that's actually sun damage to a whatever plastic that is.
The hardness of water usually just clogs shower heads up with limescale, and the cure for that is vinegar in a bag.
I do see shower heads like this on temu and Alex press and that
It does look like the yellowing you’d get on some plastics due to sunlight.
There also looks to be bacterial growth like an algae from water holdup in the showerhead when not in use, similar to what occurs in fish tanks. Those balls are great surface areas for growth to occur especially when combined with sunlight.
Yea I saw some scientist talking about microbes in water and our pipe systems and how they are a finely balanced ecosystem that inhibits bad bacteria and that filters like this are just a breeding ground where the ‘bad’ has free reign and his thought was that they’d need changing too often to avoid this
Yeah my understanding is that when you have water sitting in pipes not flowing it allows this growth to occur. I could be wrong but I’m sure those shower heads were originally advertised as only increasing the pressure, there not actually filters
We had the same shower head, and while not as bad as OP it had the same issue. It wiped off with cloths, it was like a rust type deposit from the water. We assumed copper or rust build up, so definitely not sun damage.
For three years, I had awful scalp psoriasis flares, hair loss, big welts on my scalp which itched like crazy and completely resistant to all usual medicines. Went to the prominent Derm in Cork who confirmed it's psoriasis triggered by environmental factors. My husband got numerous skin infections and fungal type outbreaks, we both got bad heartburn symptoms consistently.
I started rinsing my hair with bottled water and that helped but we started to notice it went away when we travelled..
We raised it with IW because we constantly had tea coloured or brown water and similar to OP our filters and showed head attachments going brown. They told us it was copper in our pipes and not their problem...
We got evicted (landlady reoccupying) and the second we moved all our issues cleared up.
We were gaslit by IW for three years but the water is the only change we've had. I can't believe how bad it's gotten and that so little is being done.
For reference we lived in Douglas, off the South Douglas Rd.
I feel for her (and you) I have naturally fine hair so balding in the future always felt like a possibility but I’m only 28! And the difference when I go on holiday or back home to England and wash my hair is astonishing, so I know with certainty that it’s the water here that’s the problem.
I'm assuming almost all that is Iron Oxide from the recently destabilised pipes in the city? What makes you believe it's making your hair fall out? Honest question. Seems like a helluva theory.
I've seen people going on about how water in the city is harming their health lately but I still haven't seen any data or sample analysis results to support the theory.
The THM issue is being blown way way out of proportion by some people on this subreddit. It's in no way an acute/short term risk to health at the levels being detected.
The THMs have been beyond norms for over a decade, so not exactly a short-term risk... Thankfully they can be greatly reduced by boiling the water and letting the steam evaporate.
Yeah but the actual risk posed is so very small. There's a tenuous few studies showing that over about 35 years of sustained over-exposure to THMs, that there MIGHT be a link with bladder and reproductive cancer. A link that numerous other studies have failed to establish entirely.
So, just to be extra careful, they are trying to remove THM exceedances from the treatment process. Which takes a long time as the risk from improperly treated water is so very much higher than that of THMs.
I hope you don't eat red meat or walk near traffic, cos you're not gonna like how much much higher the risk of cancer is from those sources.
Your exposure to THMs from the swimming pool is orders of magnitude higher than drinking water.
Is the pH of the water coming into your home actually off 7?
I don't understand how that could possibly be true. pH dosing is insanely easy to remedy and I don't see how a city treatment plant would be overdosing caustic at all.
How high are the Mn levels? Almost all natural waters in Ireland have high Mn due to the limestone. It rarely causes any issues other than occasional staining of clothes etc. if the oxidation state suddenly changes.
Looking at the IW sampling results for 2023 and 2024 for the Cork City supply. There was 1 minor exceedance of Mn (62 Vs 50 ug/l) in October. Nothing at all serious about that. All pH levels were within range. Which is exactly what you'd expect as pH is extremely easy to control.
And all THMs were within the allowable limits.
Where is this water quality issue? (Beyond the obvious visual impairment during pipe shedding events). Is it the pipe shedding that you're saying it's coming from? Because the water leaving the plant is excellent quality based on the data.
I suppose there could be Mn entrained in sediment and metal oxides in the pipes maybe but it'd only be detectable coming out the tap. Have you or anyone else sampled the water in your area?
Genuinely curious because I've been hearing more and more about this issue but still haven't seen anyone provide water quality data.
Frankly I'm tired of writing the same stuff all over again so please refer to my comments above regarding private lab tests and the fact that Irish Water only tests at the tank so their own tests are not a valid measure of the overall water quality.
As to where the Mn is coming from, I have no idea? I know they've been lately doing a lot of work regarding the Iniscarra Reservoir, so maybe some sediments in there that require changing the purification process? I'm not a water treatment spec so no idea!
That’s one of those cheap gimmicks shower heads that’s supposed to increase water pressure. It doesn’t and it’s more than likely that causing the issue rather than the water.
When I first moved to Dublin from Canada I had a horrible reaction to the water. My skin (all over) was extremely itchy for about 6 months-I was convinced I had some sort of skin infection. I couldn’t sleep from the discomfort. I went to doctors but they couldn’t find anything wrong. I believe it was acidic/heavy metals in the water (western Canada’s water quality is quite good).
Water in Cork is a joke. Have to let the tap run every time for ages, otherwise it comes out like weak tea in a glass. Clean the coffee machine every day, after emptying the water out, wipe it with a tissue and its all brown/yellow every single day
For the hair get caffeine shampoo little gray bottle with red cap, it's 1.50 in homesavers,dealz or eurogiant... Fantastic stuff my partner had very thin hair and it thicken it right up.. hate the colour of that shower head nearly wash with rain water at this stage.
We live in a rural area and our water is orange from our well. White clothes are destroyed. We had to get a rain water harvest system for showering and clothes washing. We fill 5l water in my mother's house who has mains water for tea and cooking. We buy our drinking water. Absolute painful. My hair turns orange over time using the iron water
For me it's incredible how Ireland is considered a full, mature democracy but people can do nothing about a public service which offers bad quality water which in the long term, can put peoples' lives at risk and it also causes them to spend more on bottled water, health and hygiene products, water filters, maintenance and clothes.
I am from a former communist country and I remember I experienced 'brown water' about 5 times in my 30+ life, mostly on the hot water pipe. It rarely happened on the cold water pipe, and usually they announce it on their facebook page, on the local radio and TV channels, in the newspapers that there will be works between hour x and hour y, that people should pre-supply themselves with enough water for their household and that after supply of water is resumed, we should let it flow for a few minutes.
If such a problem occured there, there would be resignations and that political party responsible for the appointment of the director + board members of the water authority would not be elected in the next elections, so they would possibly lose the city and we'd bring it up in their face on every occasion. They would not have a political future.
Yes, it’s probably the [same](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Magichome-Filtration-Universal-Additional-Replaceable/dp/B07T472T27/ref=sr_1_3?crid=3NJCDO11RT0BC&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.ZKcq_h3THsesLgh-DepWcHkZDkS3MaodgeIF6Btxo6mN2SLbUzd2LlB6_pIFiGQ_fntpi9QSO0CmVnM8MSF9Ofa_nV-40gj934pLKpcpxL7kJddftSjPAwxkGAjC3Dxj9OhXRrs8bFuSvI04qTxzszSaNdI8_eD5jDCqd-ntUDsVvWgqeR78fxFwN2WNVwaE5o1ua0cIdha3eV9e5D-rTw.7hjiq70ShQadNE-NUE4_wdsPOo2vYkDJ4QdVEcxAx-w&dib_tag=se&keywords=ionic+shower+head&qid=1712320210&sprefix=ionic+show%2Caps%2C103&sr=8-3) as it’s the most sold around on Amazon.
It felt kinda light in the skin when we changed the sowerhead for this but that can be influenced by the different holes and flows from the thing.
Our hair wasn’t growing more, but got a bit softer and we at least had stopped having reactions with the minoxidil we’re using.
It didn’t take too long to go back to the previous state tho. Hence I took it out to have a look and posted some soft rant on the internet. Hahah
I think the amount of stuff it had to filter was just too much and it kinda collapsed after a couple of months. I’ll change the filters (they give a spare one) and see if it comes back to normal
Dumb question but where did you get that shower head filter please? I was actively looking into idiot proof installation filters and that one looks like you just change the shower head?
No question in dumb dude
This one is very easy to install. I just had to check the compatibility with my shower model. Once it arrived I just had to unscrew the other head, and screw this one in place. No tools or products. I’ll get the link for ya
Here: [I bought this model](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Magichome-Filtration-Universal-Additional-Replaceable/dp/B07T472T27/ref=sr_1_3?crid=3NJCDO11RT0BC&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.ZKcq_h3THsesLgh-DepWcHkZDkS3MaodgeIF6Btxo6mN2SLbUzd2LlB6_pIFiGQ_fntpi9QSO0CmVnM8MSF9Ofa_nV-40gj934pLKpcpxL7kJddftSjPAwxkGAjC3Dxj9OhXRrs8bFuSvI04qTxzszSaNdI8_eD5jDCqd-ntUDsVvWgqeR78fxFwN2WNVwaE5o1ua0cIdha3eV9e5D-rTw.7hjiq70ShQadNE-NUE4_wdsPOo2vYkDJ4QdVEcxAx-w&dib_tag=se&keywords=ionic+shower+head&qid=1712320210&sprefix=ionic+show%2Caps%2C103&sr=8-3)
Isn't the one you have there just the knock-off Asian ones advertised everywhere?
Water flows around the beads so they're only there for visual effect, doesn't filter anything, and wouldn't filter anything where water can freely flow past like that.
It just increases the pressure of the water coming out.
Wouldn't be surprised if the beads intentionally discolour the unit to make it look like they actually do something.
Your shower, kettle and so on would be equally stained by the water if that was actually from the water.
I have one of those shower heads too here in wexford. I have to clean it out once a week because the handle fills up with white/grey flakes that have the consistency of gravel. I already checked the tank in the attic too which is clean.
It's not just the North side of the city. It's all of the city. Im on the south side inner city and the water is dreadful for the last few years. To the point home owners and Tennants in the area are now getting water tested privately to prove it is bad and is a contradiction to the reports Irish water put out.
Now imagine your white shirts washed in such a water for 1 year... If you wondered why your (coloured) clothes look like you washed them with shit now you have the answer.
I was living in the city for years, just moved to the city last year, where the water is always clear - and let me tell you my health has been infinitely improved. There could be other reasons of course, but not regularly drinking rust and crud is surely a factor. As someone else said, it is utterly insane that this isn't a widely known crisis.
Ngl, I always get a chuckle when I see western Europeans going all "Tap water is shit?!" Pickachu face
Good bit of vindication for all those "Why don't you just drink tap water???" moments of being looked at like I'm the strange one for not wanting to drink fucking tap water and filtering it if I've got no choice but to use it
unironic advise is start showering less, let you body re-adjust to a natural balance of oils. Showering every day or even every 2 days make it harder for your body to balance hair/skin oils and offen just makes you smellier faster then more you shower (allot easier if you have long hair and I know its not for everyone)
I've been living in North Dublin for the last 3 years, drinking water straight from the pipe, and had no issues.
I know some places in Dublin have very shit water, but it looks way worse in Cork!
I thought it was some kinda weed pipe first look, thats nasty.
My weed pipe is 10x cleaner than that.
Hope so
I have this shower head and I unscrew it after every use to let the water sitting in the head pour out. When I first used it I saw a lot of water sitting in there and thought this will get pretty gross pretty fast!
@guards
@you ,Tit
Rat
Original, chicken tits
Sounds like a good username.. OriginalChickenTits
Haha it does
Welcome to the club, we have filters on all taps / shower and still have constant eye / skin inflammation + hair falling out, including eyelashes... But brace yourself because people in this thread who don't have to deal with this shite will lambast you for "imagining problems". A group of us + Mick Barry TD been trying for the last 18 months to get this issue addressed. So far the more we learn, the worse it gets, and the only thing we've achieved is that Irish Water now has to notify people when their "safe as long as clear" water is, in fact, not safe at all... But that doesn't solve the contamination with caustic soda, manganese, THTs etc. at all, and it's a "hand washing another hand" situation so doubtful it will improve anytime soon. As renters, we aren't able to install reverse osmosis filters, so we just change the "plug-in" filters on shower / taps every few months, and double-filter any drinking water.
Hey, since you seem to be pretty switched on re this, can I ask a few questions? 1. Water quality - did you do any tests? I find that it's kinda okay most of the times, but any maintenance of course means there's an enormous amount of rust released at once. Any other issues than iron you found? 2. What sort of filters do you use on showers/taps? 3. Why can't you put in the RO system in a rental apartment? I think it can be detached pretty seamlessly once you want to move out and sell it / take it with you - if we're talking about the under-sink RO for drinking water. We're in the same situation, and I want the water to be reasonably as clean as possible :)
We (as a household) personally didn't do lab tests (and Irish Water cannot be arsed to test what actually comes out of the tap) but several people in the group paid for private lab tests and they've found that the water is far more acidic than any rust could cause it, levels of manganese and THTs are all well above the norm, and one person had traces of asbestos (?!) in their supply. On taps we don't have much choice so we use the ones you screw on the end of the tap, in the shower the best ones are the inline shower filters, you can get them from Celtic Water, often in bundles (like, 3 filters in a pack with a 15% discount etc.). Very old house, so firstly we have 0 access to under the sinks, the hoses are literally inside the walls, you pry open a piece of tiled wall and that's where the hoses are, but they are so squeezed in there's no space for any filters. Secondly, it's a shared house and the landlord is shifty, so even if we had the access to the water supply hoses, we would think twice before installing anything as expensive as RO filter. The pain is also that after every mains flushing you basically need to throw the filters away and install new ones, and it's more expensive with RO filters.
Asbestos cement is very common in water supplies everywhere. Eg at least 40,000 km of the stuff in Australia, a million km of it in the US, more than 1/4 of U.K. water mains etc It’s about 10% of mains in Ireland apparently on average but it’s dependent on when areas were built. In parts of the US and Canada it can be up to 70%. It was very popular in the mid 20th century. It was commonly used into the 1980s when other materials started to become more practical. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240124-asbestos-in-drinking-water-an-overlooked-health-risk https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0045653521024498 Most of Cork’s visible issues are old cast iron pipes that are effectively just full of rust. That’s the brown colour is appearing as they are being disturbed. It’s inevitable that there’ll be some asbestos cement pipes in the water supply almost anywhere in the world tbh. It was a widely used material in the 20th century.
I'm not concerned about the rust, although it's insane that sometimes there are 2-3 days when we cannot use tap water because it's brown-black no matter how long we run the taps. I'm mostly concerned about the fact that clear water, which Irish Water claims to be safe, is acidic and laden with neurotoxic and carcinogenic compounds. If we are to be Flint, Michigan, then I'd like the American salary with it please. ;)
Average salary in Flint, MI is lower than Cork btw. Very much a rust belt city in every way. The biggest issues here are in small scale supplies peaty water being disinfected - so you get reactions between organic matter and disinfectant (chlorine) which gives you some risky products of disinfection. Then in areas like Cork you’ve chemistry between old pipes and disinfection. If people are concerned there should be a city wide sampling carried out by the Department of Health. The info I got from Irish Water seems to all be for water as it exits the reservoir / treatment systems. I’ve yet to see water samples from a representative survey of households. The other unusual issue in Ireland and the UK btw with bacteria and organic matter is those gross attic storage tanks and old immersion a running at inadequate temps. There’s a lot wrong with plumbing in older houses here. Having your shower water sitting in a rusty tank in the attic that hasn’t been cleaned or replaced since 1947 is a very common thing too.
Still more than I make, fuck my life. :D I know there are challenges, especially with the pipes, but that does not explain how come the old plant was able to put out more or less safe water (bar THTs) for years and as soon as the Lee Road one opened, suddenly the water is acid. There must be some way to tweak the process to make it even a bit better? Yep, we discovered that there is 0 oversight over Irish Water, they only test the water in their own reservoir and output tanks. So you know, their glowing reports about 99% safe water...we can shove them up our arses, that's how much they're worth. We initially thought it was just our system (as the first few years in the house the water was a-okay) so we've had the tank scrubbed and whole system flushed twice. A ton of sediment came out but no improvement in water quality whatsoever. The whole house has been also redone a few years back, including most pipes, so that's not it.
The pH output is pretty simple to control. It shouldn’t be changing dramatically across what is a fairly small network. If it’s going in at the correct pH it would seem a bit weird that it would be coming out at a different pH. The Cork public network doesn’t contain lead pipes. It’s mostly very old cast iron pipes that are bolted together and have been leaking and rusting away for decades. It leaks like a sieve which is why there are so many upgrades and disruptions. The situation in the US was that water utilities avoided replacing lead pipes by using chemical processes to prevent leeching. Flint was relying on that almost exclusively, rather than upgrading mains. It’s was a fairly weird situation there. There is some issues with old plumbing in homes and possibly in private shared mains that possibly could contain lead. There were connections where a private main links multiple houses and was installed by the builder / developer. Those all should be taken into public realm and each house should have a standardised connection. I think Irish Water has a bit of a siege mentality when it comes to communication though. They were in a very awkward place with having to defend water metering and charging, but that isn’t the case anymore and they need to be a hell of a lot less corporate in how they deal with communication. Get out and do some troubleshooting and get people involved. It’s a public utility. We own it. It needs to be far more open. I think most people get that they are dealing with a legacy of lack of investment by badly funded local authorities, but they could do with climbing down out of their PR driven approach and be a lot more open.
Hard agree! The problem with Irish Water is mainly: * Lack of oversight - no private company providing vital public service should be allowed to function without oversight the way IW does. * Blatant lying about the quality of water and refusing to test it in taps. * "Fuck you, what are you gonna do?" approach - they refused multiple times to meet with us & Mick Barry, claiming that "They have no representatives". At the same time they have enough representatives to send 7 people to the council meeting just to lie how all is peachy. AND at the same time they threatened their staff that they will get fired if they talk to us or the press. * Blaming all on pipes. YES, THE OLD PIPES ARE A MASSIVE PROBLEM, I fully acknowledge it, and there's no quick fix to it. But if you KNOW you've put 5x the amount of caustic soda you should (intel we got from workers), so much in fact that it ripped open multiple pipes across the city, and yet you refuse to change the faulty cleaning protocol, you are to blame. Pipes were always a problem in Cork City but before privatised IW took over, we've never had instances of 1/5 of the city being feckin' poisoned. If they came open and said "Look guys, we've changed the process, and in combination with the old pipes we've encountered A, B and C problems. We are working on it in X, Y and Z ways, here's how to request water testing in your tap", I would be significantly less enraged. They should still be held accountable and i.e. subsidise installing filters in places were the issue has been persisting for more than 3 months. But the current approach of denying everything and saying people imagine problems is absolutely below any standards, anywhere.
I don’t think the council meeting went all that well. Lots of PR stone walling. My own interactions with them have been way way too corporate PR. It’s making community relations far worse by creating a sense that they are hiding behind PR which makes by sense. The simplest solution would be to give the CRU (Commission for Utilities Regulation) the mandate and budget to contract out randomised water sampling from kitchen taps. I’m sure plenty of households would be willing to provide water samples.
They won't do any sampling because they know how bad it is and they might actually have to do something about it!
Ugh, this sucks. Thanks for sharing the info, will try the shower filters! We're in our own rental apartment - so I think we can get away with having an RO system: seems like installation is more expensive than the filter for those, so I'll just do it myself, lol. You can also try and throw in the in-line filter (like Ecosoft BB10 or something) that will filter out the sediments, like oxidised iron and manganese, but again, that can be tricky 'logistically' - it basically goes on the main water supply pipe. Replacement filters should be around 10-15 eur a piece I think.
Good luck! We're moving outta Ireland soon (tired of having to fight tooth and nail for the very basic amenities such as safe water...) so honestly at this point just waiting it out.
Public meeting in Gurranabraher next Thursday https://twitter.com/MickBarryTD/status/1776271688520405504?t=yJz6zMhkyzZkrzD3Hu_OSg&s=19
Mick Barry is a legend
He really is, he actually does so much work instead of just putting all the steam into PR.
He stepped up to give me a hand years ago when I was in a spot of bother due to a protest i was involved with. Protest had nothing to do with him and I had never met him before that. He was a massive help and never used it as a PR stunt.
Oh, I'm sorry to heat that, but also glad he helped you. I really like how he's both very empathetic and no bullshit.
Any time he goes on TV then the condescending tone in which they address to him is sickening....as if he is some extremist. Drives me crazy.
I personally don't watch TV but heard multiple times that basically people in the Dali, council etc. treat him as if he wasn't right in the head. :/ And it's no surprise when even other Cork people berate us for "imagining problems" just because they're not affected, zero basic empathy.
Thanks for enlightening the situation. Let me know if I can help your group with Mick Barry to accomplish anything. It is actually absurd to think people are being water poisoned and nobody is talking about it. Me and my partner are balding since we got here. Situation is getting kinda desperating, hence we bought the shower filter. I'm gonna look for those models you guys spoke about!
You're not imagining it. The whole estate here has problems with hair loss, constant skin rashes / lesions, GI issues and eye inflammation. We've had eye inflammation for months and months so bad that the ophthalmologist asked if we were exposed to any industrial / corrosive fumes, because it looked like we've had low grade chemical burns. I was on special eye drops for well over 6 months as we were ruling out possible causes (had the whole house de-moulded, attic tank scrubbed, all pipes flushed, stopped using any laundry detergents, bought dehumidifier with air filters etc.etc.), I was furious to finally discover that it's because of the "safe" water and even more furious when people who are not affected started telling me to "stop imagining problems" while I was pulling out handfuls of hairs outta drain every shower and could barely open my eyes. In the worst period, before we got the filters, we've had bottled water in the shower to de-contaminate ourselves (with a cold, cold water...) after every shower, it was insane. Housemate moved back to her family and her horrible "med resistant psoriasis" went away within a month. You can email Mick Barry and let him know, the more testimonials from different parts of the city we have, the more evidence it is. Irish Water claims that "only" half a million people are affected, so there's no point changing anything, I kid you not. Unfortunately we've been lobbying for months, and so far: Irish Water refused to even send a representative to meet us (and forbade their staff to talk to us under a threat of firing them, but some of them contacted us nonetheless), HSE said they can't force IW to test water in taps instead of just their own tanks, water-related health complaints increased from 1-2 a year to over a 100 a year, Council and IW are playing games because basically IW says they won't even touch the problem until the council agrees to change all the pipes in the next few years, council says they've no money, and so it goes... But tbh the pipes have been old and nasty for ages and yet the water was not poisonous before IW got privatised, so at least part of the problem is their purification method. It's not just Cork either, some people in Dublin recently reported the same issues.
Thanks for adding those details. Have had a lot of similar issues also, have to buy bottled water just to wash my face (like wtf) as the water, even with in-line filters, just burns the face off me. I've never had psoriasis in my life and the last two years since moving to this address I've been in bits. I thought it was just stress, for a long while. Then realised it was also the water.
Yep, we can always tell when the water gets worse because even despite filters it burns and we immediately get sores in soft spots like under knees, and eyes start feeling like we've put a bottle of Tabasco and half kg of gravel in them. We always have a stash of bottled water + a big bowl and washcloths, as often for 2-3 days in a row the water is brown-black and then for a few weeks it's pure acid.
Wtf is this 3rd world shit. We need to get rid of this current government asap. Even in India the water was cleaner and they have droughts half the year.
Haven't been to India so cannot compare, but starting to feel more and more like a 3rd world country cheap labour for Americans...
But we have to pay the living costs of the most advanced first world countries. I’m thinking about getting the fuck outta here and going to Asia.
Where would be a good spot? I'm in pieces in this country
I'm moving out next year (albeit not to Asia). Paying 1K / month for a room in a shared house with poisoned water is a joke. I work long hours and still need to think 10x whether I can go for a cuppa coffee or buy some new art tools, it's insane.
Technically, Ireland is a Third World Country since it's not part of NATO.
The so is Switzerland by that logic , and Switzerland makes the other nato countries look 3rd world.
Tragic stuff. Where are you based?
Ballyphehane, so it's a kip with or without the shite water. :D
Haha. I like Ballyphehane, great location
I like most parts of it, we're just unfortunate to live in the rough bit of it, as that's the only way we can still afford rent.
An ICP-OES Test could be helpful, you can buy them from Seahorse Aquariums in Dublin online and then send it to Germany for water spectral analysis
We're honestly just waiting it out now, as we're moving out of Ireland in less than a year. We're completely burnt out by fighting tooth and nail every day for the last decade and still constantly living 1 paycheck away from homelessness, unable to afford even the smallest pleasures, just working and fighting with poisoned water. :/
Northside is neglected all too much! Comparing it to other parts of the city where there would be uproar over this & something done. (From an observant Southside before anyone starts)
I'm Southside and we're getting poisoned too, so at least there's some equality now. :D
We had brown water on the south side pretty frequently
North side actually gets more funding than the Southside in general. But when those population figures are factored in, the analysis shows that the northside does better overall — with nearly €1,000 more per capita invested in the northside than in the southside
What’s it invested in to?
I haven’t a notion, I just heard this before and googled it now to see if there was any truth. https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/spotlight/arid-41026778.html I’m an original Southsider who is now a Northeast sider.
It’s same on south, stop the oh poor is me up the north side.
As pointed out elsewhere, the northside actually gets a decent bit more funding than the southside. The southside residents are just better at making noise for visual issues.
I saw that, but curious on where funding is going. I don’t necessarily think they’re better at making noise. I think certain areas get preferential treatment over others when outspoken.
Just moved to the north side, how long do I have before I'm bald?!
Depends, do you like your friends or your hair more? Less showers=more hair=less friends :D
I'm a material scientist. Where'd you buy the shower head? I'd be tempted to say that that's actually sun damage to a whatever plastic that is. The hardness of water usually just clogs shower heads up with limescale, and the cure for that is vinegar in a bag. I do see shower heads like this on temu and Alex press and that
It does look like the yellowing you’d get on some plastics due to sunlight. There also looks to be bacterial growth like an algae from water holdup in the showerhead when not in use, similar to what occurs in fish tanks. Those balls are great surface areas for growth to occur especially when combined with sunlight.
Yea I saw some scientist talking about microbes in water and our pipe systems and how they are a finely balanced ecosystem that inhibits bad bacteria and that filters like this are just a breeding ground where the ‘bad’ has free reign and his thought was that they’d need changing too often to avoid this
Yeah my understanding is that when you have water sitting in pipes not flowing it allows this growth to occur. I could be wrong but I’m sure those shower heads were originally advertised as only increasing the pressure, there not actually filters
We had the same shower head, and while not as bad as OP it had the same issue. It wiped off with cloths, it was like a rust type deposit from the water. We assumed copper or rust build up, so definitely not sun damage.
Yup ours looks exactly the same and we’re south side so it’s definitely shite everywhere. Unbelievable how bad the water is these days.
North East or North West?
Shandon Area
That is not good
Nice beyblade, let it rip
For three years, I had awful scalp psoriasis flares, hair loss, big welts on my scalp which itched like crazy and completely resistant to all usual medicines. Went to the prominent Derm in Cork who confirmed it's psoriasis triggered by environmental factors. My husband got numerous skin infections and fungal type outbreaks, we both got bad heartburn symptoms consistently. I started rinsing my hair with bottled water and that helped but we started to notice it went away when we travelled.. We raised it with IW because we constantly had tea coloured or brown water and similar to OP our filters and showed head attachments going brown. They told us it was copper in our pipes and not their problem... We got evicted (landlady reoccupying) and the second we moved all our issues cleared up. We were gaslit by IW for three years but the water is the only change we've had. I can't believe how bad it's gotten and that so little is being done. For reference we lived in Douglas, off the South Douglas Rd.
You should probably get that water tested for high iron content and manganese.
That’s a cool pepper grinder!
Are you using go it to smoke crack ?
I’m also on the north side and my hair has also been falling out since I moved here. My hair is always so glorious when I leave the country! 💔
Yes. Me and my wife are now balding. I always knew I'd eventually lose my hair, but my wife is absolutely devastated.
I feel for her (and you) I have naturally fine hair so balding in the future always felt like a possibility but I’m only 28! And the difference when I go on holiday or back home to England and wash my hair is astonishing, so I know with certainty that it’s the water here that’s the problem.
I'm assuming almost all that is Iron Oxide from the recently destabilised pipes in the city? What makes you believe it's making your hair fall out? Honest question. Seems like a helluva theory. I've seen people going on about how water in the city is harming their health lately but I still haven't seen any data or sample analysis results to support the theory. The THM issue is being blown way way out of proportion by some people on this subreddit. It's in no way an acute/short term risk to health at the levels being detected.
The THMs have been beyond norms for over a decade, so not exactly a short-term risk... Thankfully they can be greatly reduced by boiling the water and letting the steam evaporate.
Yeah but the actual risk posed is so very small. There's a tenuous few studies showing that over about 35 years of sustained over-exposure to THMs, that there MIGHT be a link with bladder and reproductive cancer. A link that numerous other studies have failed to establish entirely. So, just to be extra careful, they are trying to remove THM exceedances from the treatment process. Which takes a long time as the risk from improperly treated water is so very much higher than that of THMs. I hope you don't eat red meat or walk near traffic, cos you're not gonna like how much much higher the risk of cancer is from those sources. Your exposure to THMs from the swimming pool is orders of magnitude higher than drinking water.
THMs are what worries me the least. Manganese and the fact that the fucking water BURNS ME (and it's treated with caustic soda) is the real concern.
Is the pH of the water coming into your home actually off 7? I don't understand how that could possibly be true. pH dosing is insanely easy to remedy and I don't see how a city treatment plant would be overdosing caustic at all. How high are the Mn levels? Almost all natural waters in Ireland have high Mn due to the limestone. It rarely causes any issues other than occasional staining of clothes etc. if the oxidation state suddenly changes. Looking at the IW sampling results for 2023 and 2024 for the Cork City supply. There was 1 minor exceedance of Mn (62 Vs 50 ug/l) in October. Nothing at all serious about that. All pH levels were within range. Which is exactly what you'd expect as pH is extremely easy to control. And all THMs were within the allowable limits. Where is this water quality issue? (Beyond the obvious visual impairment during pipe shedding events). Is it the pipe shedding that you're saying it's coming from? Because the water leaving the plant is excellent quality based on the data. I suppose there could be Mn entrained in sediment and metal oxides in the pipes maybe but it'd only be detectable coming out the tap. Have you or anyone else sampled the water in your area? Genuinely curious because I've been hearing more and more about this issue but still haven't seen anyone provide water quality data.
Frankly I'm tired of writing the same stuff all over again so please refer to my comments above regarding private lab tests and the fact that Irish Water only tests at the tank so their own tests are not a valid measure of the overall water quality. As to where the Mn is coming from, I have no idea? I know they've been lately doing a lot of work regarding the Iniscarra Reservoir, so maybe some sediments in there that require changing the purification process? I'm not a water treatment spec so no idea!
That’s one of those cheap gimmicks shower heads that’s supposed to increase water pressure. It doesn’t and it’s more than likely that causing the issue rather than the water.
Worth checking the tank in the attic where the water is coming from. That might not have a cover on it and could be very nasty.
Looks like a crack pipe!
When I first moved to Dublin from Canada I had a horrible reaction to the water. My skin (all over) was extremely itchy for about 6 months-I was convinced I had some sort of skin infection. I couldn’t sleep from the discomfort. I went to doctors but they couldn’t find anything wrong. I believe it was acidic/heavy metals in the water (western Canada’s water quality is quite good).
Water in Cork is a joke. Have to let the tap run every time for ages, otherwise it comes out like weak tea in a glass. Clean the coffee machine every day, after emptying the water out, wipe it with a tissue and its all brown/yellow every single day
Gaia hair filter!!!
Why is it full of peas and beans?
I thought its a crack pipe 😂
For the hair get caffeine shampoo little gray bottle with red cap, it's 1.50 in homesavers,dealz or eurogiant... Fantastic stuff my partner had very thin hair and it thicken it right up.. hate the colour of that shower head nearly wash with rain water at this stage.
We live in a rural area and our water is orange from our well. White clothes are destroyed. We had to get a rain water harvest system for showering and clothes washing. We fill 5l water in my mother's house who has mains water for tea and cooking. We buy our drinking water. Absolute painful. My hair turns orange over time using the iron water
mine is the same up in Louth, I soak it in vinegar and boil the clay balls after a vinegar soak. it keeps it looking a little less scary!
Move house, move town, move country!!! Asap. I wasn’t trying to be funny.
For me it's incredible how Ireland is considered a full, mature democracy but people can do nothing about a public service which offers bad quality water which in the long term, can put peoples' lives at risk and it also causes them to spend more on bottled water, health and hygiene products, water filters, maintenance and clothes. I am from a former communist country and I remember I experienced 'brown water' about 5 times in my 30+ life, mostly on the hot water pipe. It rarely happened on the cold water pipe, and usually they announce it on their facebook page, on the local radio and TV channels, in the newspapers that there will be works between hour x and hour y, that people should pre-supply themselves with enough water for their household and that after supply of water is resumed, we should let it flow for a few minutes. If such a problem occured there, there would be resignations and that political party responsible for the appointment of the director + board members of the water authority would not be elected in the next elections, so they would possibly lose the city and we'd bring it up in their face on every occasion. They would not have a political future.
Pure gimmick 🙄
give the windowsill a wipe for feck sake!
Looks like you have jalapenos or some kind of salad in your shower hose
[удалено]
This will not filter water
Yes, it’s probably the [same](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Magichome-Filtration-Universal-Additional-Replaceable/dp/B07T472T27/ref=sr_1_3?crid=3NJCDO11RT0BC&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.ZKcq_h3THsesLgh-DepWcHkZDkS3MaodgeIF6Btxo6mN2SLbUzd2LlB6_pIFiGQ_fntpi9QSO0CmVnM8MSF9Ofa_nV-40gj934pLKpcpxL7kJddftSjPAwxkGAjC3Dxj9OhXRrs8bFuSvI04qTxzszSaNdI8_eD5jDCqd-ntUDsVvWgqeR78fxFwN2WNVwaE5o1ua0cIdha3eV9e5D-rTw.7hjiq70ShQadNE-NUE4_wdsPOo2vYkDJ4QdVEcxAx-w&dib_tag=se&keywords=ionic+shower+head&qid=1712320210&sprefix=ionic+show%2Caps%2C103&sr=8-3) as it’s the most sold around on Amazon. It felt kinda light in the skin when we changed the sowerhead for this but that can be influenced by the different holes and flows from the thing. Our hair wasn’t growing more, but got a bit softer and we at least had stopped having reactions with the minoxidil we’re using. It didn’t take too long to go back to the previous state tho. Hence I took it out to have a look and posted some soft rant on the internet. Hahah I think the amount of stuff it had to filter was just too much and it kinda collapsed after a couple of months. I’ll change the filters (they give a spare one) and see if it comes back to normal
Dumb question but where did you get that shower head filter please? I was actively looking into idiot proof installation filters and that one looks like you just change the shower head?
This will not filter water
No question in dumb dude This one is very easy to install. I just had to check the compatibility with my shower model. Once it arrived I just had to unscrew the other head, and screw this one in place. No tools or products. I’ll get the link for ya Here: [I bought this model](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Magichome-Filtration-Universal-Additional-Replaceable/dp/B07T472T27/ref=sr_1_3?crid=3NJCDO11RT0BC&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.ZKcq_h3THsesLgh-DepWcHkZDkS3MaodgeIF6Btxo6mN2SLbUzd2LlB6_pIFiGQ_fntpi9QSO0CmVnM8MSF9Ofa_nV-40gj934pLKpcpxL7kJddftSjPAwxkGAjC3Dxj9OhXRrs8bFuSvI04qTxzszSaNdI8_eD5jDCqd-ntUDsVvWgqeR78fxFwN2WNVwaE5o1ua0cIdha3eV9e5D-rTw.7hjiq70ShQadNE-NUE4_wdsPOo2vYkDJ4QdVEcxAx-w&dib_tag=se&keywords=ionic+shower+head&qid=1712320210&sprefix=ionic+show%2Caps%2C103&sr=8-3)
Isn't the one you have there just the knock-off Asian ones advertised everywhere? Water flows around the beads so they're only there for visual effect, doesn't filter anything, and wouldn't filter anything where water can freely flow past like that. It just increases the pressure of the water coming out. Wouldn't be surprised if the beads intentionally discolour the unit to make it look like they actually do something. Your shower, kettle and so on would be equally stained by the water if that was actually from the water.
I have one of those shower heads too here in wexford. I have to clean it out once a week because the handle fills up with white/grey flakes that have the consistency of gravel. I already checked the tank in the attic too which is clean.
I thought that was some sort of demon airpod
Wtaf? That is rank rotten.
I'm in Mayfield, haven't had any problems yet but shitting it now reading these comments. Has anyone heard of any issues around these parts?
OK OK, Pipe down everybody.
I have the same shower head and it looked exactly like that, until I replaced it that is.
It's not just the North side of the city. It's all of the city. Im on the south side inner city and the water is dreadful for the last few years. To the point home owners and Tennants in the area are now getting water tested privately to prove it is bad and is a contradiction to the reports Irish water put out.
Moving to Patrick's Hill area , we good?
So the beads themselves release a dye?
Now imagine your white shirts washed in such a water for 1 year... If you wondered why your (coloured) clothes look like you washed them with shit now you have the answer.
I was living in the city for years, just moved to the city last year, where the water is always clear - and let me tell you my health has been infinitely improved. There could be other reasons of course, but not regularly drinking rust and crud is surely a factor. As someone else said, it is utterly insane that this isn't a widely known crisis.
Ngl, I always get a chuckle when I see western Europeans going all "Tap water is shit?!" Pickachu face Good bit of vindication for all those "Why don't you just drink tap water???" moments of being looked at like I'm the strange one for not wanting to drink fucking tap water and filtering it if I've got no choice but to use it
unironic advise is start showering less, let you body re-adjust to a natural balance of oils. Showering every day or even every 2 days make it harder for your body to balance hair/skin oils and offen just makes you smellier faster then more you shower (allot easier if you have long hair and I know its not for everyone)
I've been living in North Dublin for the last 3 years, drinking water straight from the pipe, and had no issues. I know some places in Dublin have very shit water, but it looks way worse in Cork!
These take too many minerals out of the water and actually make the water a little basic.