Black slime clogging faucet aerator

This is the 2nd time this year that our faucet aerator has been clogged. The first time it happened, it was at the 1st floor kitchen faucet. My initial thought was the city worker was repairing the street and closed the main water line on street level. After looking at the problem, found out my kitchen faucet aerator was blocked up.. it was a simple clearing of the black slime out, letting water run for a few mins and everything was good. Then this morning, same thing happened to my basement bathroom faucet. We have been living here for a few years and we did a gut renovation here so all the pipes and fixtures are new. This has never happened to us before. Anyone experience anything like this? I can understand once in a while, hard sediment blocking the aerator but not black slime blocking it. Would this be from the main water line, or maybe the hot water heater tank?

namahs

in General Discussion 4 years and 1 month ago

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hkapstein | 4 years and 1 month ago

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It wouldn’t cost much to change out those flex lines. Flex lines should be changed every 5 years or so anyway. They are black, and who knows what manufacturing error could have occured with them. Not saying that’s the problem, but it’s an easy rule out. Sometimes washers or hoses disintigrate upstream and junk accumulates in the aerator, and while it can be slimy, would say it is usually a bit chunnky.

JohnHancock | 4 years and 1 month ago

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I’m assuming that if bacteria are present they would be just in those aerators. I would unscrew them and boil them, chlorine them. Maybe sanitize the end of the fixture and flush it out. Unless you kill the source it’s likely to grow back

namahs | 4 years and 1 month ago

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After checking all the faucets fixture, this seems to be only isolated to the Kitchen sink and the basement bath. We do not see in the 1st bath or master bath. I am leaning towards possibly when the fixture was installed a couple of years ago, the contractor did not flush the line for a few minutes before installing? or its the stainless steel braided source line on the hot side. I am ruling out its the main source water or hot water heater since the black slime is not in the other 3 bath faucets. Also all the faucets in the house are used constantly throughout the day.

andriywww1990 | 4 years and 1 month ago

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arkady, we had something like this in a building once but it was rusty water and we would remove the aerator and run the water for an hour or so until it cleared and then have to do it all over again in 3 mos (it was on the top floor of a large building and i traced the system looking for a holding tank). i have held back from commenting on this as i really do not have a solution but my feeling with the problem we were having was that it was a building related issue strictly within our pipes in the building. A whole house filter may not solve a problem that is within the building itself (after the filter). A local filter at the faucet may catch what ever this is (and clog) but that still leaves the problem and if this is biological (as cate suggests) my thought is that the OP would be better to find out what it is and deal with it than simply remove the visual evidence from the water.

this is only a thought. i never did solve the problem we had in the building i mention. i am not a plumber.

Arkady | 4 years and 1 month ago

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How often do you use the faucet? As Cate suggests, it sound like mold & maybe developed over time when you hadn’t used it? Otherwise, I’d suggest a whole-house water filter. Under $100 from HD or Lowe’s.

cate | 4 years and 1 month ago

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Black slime sounds like mold.