House and garage apartment are both on the same water supply system. Water from the meter goes to the house first and then tee’s to supply the apartment. House water is fine, apartment water has what the owner describes as a sewer smell, even after flowing for about 10 minutes.
Supply is polybutyl and the apartment is seldom used. Would water sitting in the line for a long period of time cause the pipe to develop a persistent odor, even after being allowed to flow for some time? The complaint is for the cold side. The water heater is new and was fired up only for testing when installed about 4 months ago.
Going there tomorrow to scope it out, but, any ideas would be helpful.
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When we have spec houses sit for long periods of time sometimes the water gets smelly. Problem is that I believe it is the hot and is caused by stagnant water in the (new) tank. Solution is to leave the water running for a half hour or so. Can't hurt.
Since learning that, I try to remember to go in these houses and let the water run for a while every 3 months or so. We have 4 sitting right now. Economy :-( BTW - these houses have Pex type piping.
Edited 11/19/2009 7:05 am ET by Matt
drain and flush the water tanks in both the house and apartment, then let the water run through the entire system for about 5 munutes and your problem will more then likely go away
i had the same problem with a house i am fixing up to sell, the water heater was old and i couldnt drain it, so i replaced it, when i took the old heater outside, i opened it up and in the bottom was some very nasty smelling and strange looking crud which had a gel like texture
sounds like this is something being worked on.
when i did my house, all in copper,i hadn't finished all of it. but the faucets i did have working smelled bad. i tried clorox,injected into the line etc. still stunk.
when i finally got all the faucets installed and working ,the small went away. i think that the branches that weren't done had flux in them and the water was stagnet in those lines,making for the smell. once they all were flowing it took about a week and all was fine.
the older i get ,
the more people tick me off
As others have suggested, its likely source is the water heater tank.
It's a fairly common thing, and it's caused by a colony of bacteria that grows in an unused or little-used HW tank. They produce hydrogen sulfide that rises to the top of the tank where it gets carried out to any hot tap that gets opened. Rotten egg smell.
Flushing the tank will help. Dosing it with Clorox, and then flushing will help even more, because you kill the bacteria. They will grow again later on, but regular use generally keeps their numbers low enough, especially if your water source contains some chlorine.
Really persistent and recurring cases can be helped by replacing the anode rod, if it's a magnesium rod. Two types--magnesium and aluminum. Water heater mfrs try to match the rods to the water chemistry of the region.
You can ID the magnesium rod by the pea-sized drop of weld on the top of the rod, which is a 6-sided nut about 1-1/8" in diameter. Aluminum rods are smooth-topped.