Why is my water milky or cloudy?
Cloudy water is usually just air mixing with water and causing tiny air bubbles. It is nothing to worry about and it won’t affect your health.
There are three causes of air in water:
- If we’ve fixed a water main near you, there might be air trapped in the water. Your water should be back to normal within 24 hours, the air just needs to work its way through the system
- If cold water pipes touch unlagged hot water pipes, the cold water can warm up and become cloudy
- Faulty plumbing in your home.
What to do if your water is milky or cloudy
1. Run your cold tap
Run your tap for 5 minutes. If that doesn't clear it, try running the tap again and turning the internal stop tap on and off several times to help release the air from the pipes.
2. Check for problems
Check with your neighbours. If they're experiencing problems too, it's likely part of a bigger issue. You can use our website to check if we're doing any work in your area or report a problem if we're not already working on it.
3. Find a plumber
If we're not working on anything in your area, the milky or cloudy water is likely to be an issue with your plumbing. In that instance, you should get an approved plumber to come and check what's going on.
4. Get in touch with us
If you've tried running your tap, turning your stop tap on and off, asking your neighbours and checking if we're working in your area and still haven't been able to resolve the issue, then please contact us.
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Any questions?
What are Yorkshire Water doing to reduce the likelihood of discoloured water?
Yorkshire Water has over 31,000 km of mains in the ground and supplies water to almost five million people in the Yorkshire region. The Company has a process to prioritise where mains rehabilitation or cleaning/flushing may be required.
In areas where there is localised historic discolouration, Yorkshire Water operates a programme to flush clean the water mains. Flushing is a proactive and controlled way of removing the sediment which causes discoloured water and therefore reducing the likelihood of it occurring in the future.
We will always let you know when this activity is being carried out in your area.
The quality of water leaving the water treatment works continues to improve with more effective removal of naturally occurring iron and manganese from the water. Yorkshire Water will continue to replace cast iron mains and will continue to clean many of our large diameter trunk mains where mains deposits are known to be an issue.