Chimney soot in roof drinking water?

[Haironyourchest]

Situation: I have a tin roof, low pitch (box profile). Stove flu pipe extends 2 feet from roof, near the ridge.

 

Rainwater runs into gutters and then into my storage tanks, 6000lt capacity. I drink this. Have been for a decade and all my life before that have drunk mountain water runoff.

 

No filters, never have filtered, bar a cheese cloth at the tank mouth to catch big particles and save the plumbing.

 

Now, I've just swept the flue pipe, from the inside with a flexible drill brush. It's left a scattering of soot/creosote particles on the roof, around the chimney. It's raining now, and I've disconnected the gutters from feeding the tanks, so hopefully the rain will wash it into the gutters, where it will probably lodge. I'll get up there with a hose and brush sometime and flush them out.

 

In previous years, I've taken a blower up on the roof after and blown most of it away, or brushed the roof. Some years I remove the whole flue and break it down for a super cleaning.

 

I'm just wondering, if soot particles make it into my drinking water, how much of a health impact could it be? It's a creosote type substance after all, and it's somewhat soluble in water.

 

I'm not the least concerned with biological stuff in the water but chemicals are another thing. If it's a hot week in summer and heavy rain is forecast, I decouple the gutters an let the roof flush for a few hours before filling the tanks.

[difflock]

19 minutes ago, Haironyourchest said:

 

They were getting testicular cancer untill some doctor figured out the connection and taught his test subjects to wash their nads after work. Apparently this actually worked and sorted the problem. I watched a thing about it... Mind the poor wee lads probably didn't survive too long anyway, due to inhaling the stuff...

I thought that was young vehicle mechanics, scratching their balls while wearing sump-oil soaked and routinely unwashed  overalls, or so I recall reading somewhere.

[difflock]

1 hour ago, peds said:

I do, yeah, straight off the mountain. Very lucky.

 

I'll be doing rainwater harvest for the polytunnels though.

 

I met one of those chaps who drink their own piss once. Strangest thing. He kept burping with these really deep, resonant, wet-slap-sounding belches, like a 25kg paper grain sack filled with overripe fruit impacting tarmac from height. I couldn't explain it until I got talking to the guy, and it came up naturally that he partook of his own brew.

I felt a little sick for the rest of the day.

He was from Donegal. 

As long as ye warney snogging him  .  .  .

[GarethM]

Depends on how much discount 😉.

As the saying goes we're all whores, we just argue about the price.

[peds]

Don't, I just got a bit of sick in my mouth.

Honestly, I'm not a squeamish person, but the noise of these burps was something else. Like smacking an octopus with a carrier bag of cold soup.

[openspaceman]

1 hour ago, difflock said:

I thought that was young vehicle mechanics, scratching their balls while wearing sump-oil soaked and routinely unwashed  overalls, or so I recall reading somewhere.

Yes the next blip was young american mechanics from sticking oily rags in their pockets.

[GarethM]

One has to wonder what miracle they're expecting from something that's a waste products.

 

Whilst I've heard no2's being lab purified for solving digestive problems.

 

Maybe even weirdos draw the line at picking loo paper out of the next meal, or is that just added roughage?

[openspaceman]

9 hours ago, GarethM said:

Whilst I've heard no2's being lab purified for solving digestive problems

I know that it is used to inoculate a healthy  gut flora/fauna  into the intestines of patients who have had an intense course of antibiotics that have killed all bacteria except the  resistant ones, like clostridium difficele.

 

Otherwise the resistant ones have a monopoly and destroy the small intestine, causing the patient to starve to death. I saw my father die this way before the problem was recognised 18 years ago.

[john87]

13 hours ago, difflock said:

I thought that was young vehicle mechanics, scratching their balls while wearing sump-oil soaked and routinely unwashed  overalls, or so I recall reading somewhere.

They used to show us films of that sort of stuff when i was in tech many many years ago. There were other films giving dire warnings of the danger of sticking an air line up ones bum too..

 

john..

[donnk]

run  it through the poteen still first to be on the safe side.