Why Is My Water Orange? What Could Be Wrong?

The water coming from your faucets is supposed to be clear right? But for some reason, the water that is coming out of your taps has an orange tint to it, and sometimes it comes out an orange/red color. What could be causing this?

Why Is My Water Orange? Orange color in water is most likely caused by the presents of iron in the water. Both Ferrous (dissolved) and Ferric (non-dissolved) iron found in water can give it an orange or even reddish color. When high levels of iron are present in the water, it can be dark orange or even brown color.

Knowing why your water has an orange or even a reddish-brown color to it is the first step towards getting it clear like water is supposed to be. But that is just the beginning, let’s find out where that orange color is coming from, and how to get rid of it.

Why does iron make your water look orange?

The orange color that we see in water that contains iron is the iron oxide or rust that has been created from the iron reacting with oxygen and water. The actual color that the iron oxide becomes can vary from a light yellow, too orange, brown, and even green.

Rather than getting into the complicated science of it all, the orange too orange-brown color that we most commonly see in the water is that color because of the amount of iron that is in the water and the chemical composition of the iron.

If you would like to get all of the scientific details about why rust comes in different colors, you will have to understand Crystal field theory which explains how iron breaks down in different ways which makes it into different colors.

Where is the iron coming from?

Orange water from municipal water:

Most municipal water supplies will be free of iron, but that doesn’t mean that there can’t be occasional orange water because of iron contained in the water.

Iron pipes or changes in the water that the municipal supplier is getting its water from may mean iron in your municipal water.

A cracked or damaged pipe may allow corroded iron to be exposed to the water, and therefore iron may get into the water.

Municipal water suppliers will often flush out there pipes and may introduce high amounts of chlorine into the water to disinfect the inside of the piping.

When chlorine comes into contact with exposed iron, it can more easily corrode the iron and carry it in the water to your home.

Also, the chlorine will cause iron to come out of solution which means that the Ferrous iron that may be dissolved in the water will become non-dissolved, (Ferric) iron which is more visible than dissolved ferrous iron which can make the water appear orange.

Orange water from well water:

Well, water can often contain iron that it has absorbed as it traveled through the iron deposits in the earth.

The more exposure the water has to the iron deposits, the more potential iron that the water can absorb, and the more orange coloring you will see in the water.

Water from a private well can contain both Ferric iron (iron particles that are not dissolved in the water) and Ferrous iron (iron that has been dissolved in the water). Although both forms of iron can make your water appear orange, they need to be removed from the water in different ways.

What kind of iron is making your water orange, and how to remove it from your water?

Both Ferrous (dissolved) and Ferric (non-dissolved) iron can cause an orange color in your water, but because they are present in the water in different ways, they need to be removed by different methods.

Ferric (non-dissolved) iron in water is iron that is in a large particle form and therefore a large amount of Ferric iron can be removed by fine mesh filtration. For the average home, this means the use of a large whole house filtering system.

Providing that the water pressure in your home is adequate, using a 5-micron water filter cartridge in your whole house filter housing will remove a great deal of non-dissolved (Ferric) iron from your water.

A 5-micron water filter cartridge is fine enough to be very effective at filtering out iron particles from your water, yet it is not so dense as to significantly reduce the water pressure in an average home.

Once the water has passed through the 5-micron filter cartridge, there may still be some finer particles of iron in your water, or dissolved (Ferrous) iron. The most economical way to remove this dissolved iron from your water is by the use of ion exchange.

Most people are familiar with the process of ion exchange, they just don’t know it. Instead, they simply call it, a water softener.

A water softener is simply a system that runs your water through a bed of ion exchange resin that removes hard minerals and also iron.

Watch this quick video for a better understanding of how ion exchange can remove iron from water.

The same process that a water softener uses to remove hard minerals from water also happens to work very well for the removal of iron in the water, you simply have to program each 1 part per million of iron as 4 grains of hardness.

First, use an iron test kit to determine the amount of iron that you have in your water, then for every 1 part per million of iron that you find in your water, add an extra 4 to the hardness of your that you can determine with a hardness test kit.

Once you have programmed your water softener correctly, the ion exchange resin that is in the water softener will remove the iron contained in your water along with the hardness providing that the system has the capacity to do so.

Is orange water safe to drink?

Normally, orange-colored water is perfectly safe to drink because the orange color is due to iron which is not considered to be unhealthy to consume.

But having iron in your water will usually give the water an unpleasant metallic taste which can change the flavor of food or any drinks that you might add the water too, or ice cubes made with the orange water.

If you have orange water, using a simple water filtering pitcher will not remove the iron from the water. But, installing an in-line filter with a 1 to 5-micron filter cartridge can help to remove non-dissolved (ferric) iron from your water.

Can orange water cause problems?

Typically, orange water means that the water contains iron, which in itself should not cause any significant problems in the plumbing of your home. But iron that is not dissolved in the water can build-up inside of your plumbing, and cause restriction of your water flow.

However, once the iron has been removed from your water, the build-up will often gradually come off of the walls of your plumbing, and clogged pipes will clear.

See my article on “Will A Water Softener Remove Build-up In Pipes“.

Can orange water damage your hair?

Because the iron in the water makes the water orange, iron deposits can develop in your hair, and if the iron comes into contact with oxygen, the iron could oxidize and turn your hair orange.

This is often just a temporary issue and installing a water softener to remove the iron from the water should also stop the depositing of iron, and therefore your hair should lose its orange tint.

Will orange water stain my clothes?

Iron in water can wreak havoc on white clothing. At best, it will only give them a slight dingy look, but if the amount of iron in your water is high, your laundry could come out orange.

Using chlorine bleach will make the problem even worse as chlorine will take dissolved iron out of solution and make it more likely to stain your clothing.