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Blue, pink, green or other coloured water

Green water icon

If your water is blue, pink, green or any other unusual bright colour, please follow our advice contained in the sections below.

🛈 If your drinking water is a bright or vivid green or blue colour, it may pose a risk to your health. If this happens, please call us immediately on 0345 672 3723.

  • Blue/green water can indicate elevated levels of copper in your water. This is most common where newly installed copper pipework has been installed in your property. After a few days of use, a protective layer should form inside the copper pipe as it ‘settles in’ which will stop the colour. In some instances of older properties, it could indicate a problem with the electrical bonding. 

    On rare occasions, coloured water can be caused by poorly installed toilet cisterns, which allow water to flow back into your internal plumbing when there is an interruption to your supply. This sometimes only comes to light when coloured toilet cleaning products are used in the cistern. 

    Algae can also cause a green colour to water, however this would normally only ever occur in properties with ‘header tanks’ when regular maintenance checks are not completed. If you think this may be what has caused your issue, have your regular maintenance checks completed.

  • In most instances, this is not caused by the water being supplied to you and is caused by your private internal pipework. You should contact your house builder or a professionally qualified plumber to help.  

    FIND A PLUMBER

  • Always ensure that you use an approved plumber when carrying out work in your property. 

    You may be experiencing coloured mould or slime forming on things that come into contact with water. For more information on slime and staining in your kitchen or bathroom, please visit the link below.

    Advice here

Watch our video

Hear from our water quality experts on what to do if you're experiencing blue, pink or green water.

Slime, stains and mould

Preventing slime and staining in your kitchen and bathroom.

Check for issues in your area

Click here if your water is white or cloudy

Does your water look unusual?

If you have discoloured, cloudy or have bits in your water. See what may be the cause.

Unusual taste or smell?

Your water can smell or taste different to normal at times. See what may be the cause.

Important Notice

Cold Weather

Due to the freezing weather conditions across the region a number of our customers are experiencing no water or reduced pressure, caused by frozen pipes in their home. There are a few things you can do to check if you have frozen pipes. If you are unable to complete these checks please reach out to your family, friends or neighbours to see if they can help:

  1. If there are no local issues check with your neighbours. If they have water, you may have a frozen pipe in your property.
  2. Here’s what to do. Turn off your stop tap by turning it clockwise, it’s usually found under your kitchen sink, but can be in your garage or cellar.
  3. Once you’ve turned your stop tap off, turn on your cold tap in the kitchen
  4. If you have no water, this could be due to a frozen pipe somewhere in your home. This may be the pipe which comes into your home near to where your stop tap is located.
  5. Carefully thaw the pipe using a warm towel, or if safe to do so a hairdryer in short bursts, ensuring you keep well away from water. If you can get water from a neighbour you could try a hot water bottle too. This could take a while, depending on how frozen and big your pipes are.
  6. Switch your stop tap back on to see if the water is running.

You can find more information at www.unitedutilities.com/frozenpipes.

If you have followed all of the advice provided and still want to talk to us, please give us a call. As we are experiencing really high call volumes at the moment, please bear with us as wait times will be longer than usual. 

Due to the freezing weather conditions across the region a number of our customers are experiencing no water or reduced pressure, caused by frozen pipes in their home. For more help and advice if you have a frozen pipe head to www.unitedutilities.com/frozenpipes.

Cold Weather

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