I bought a home that has well water. We noticed a “rotten egg” smell in the water in both of our bathrooms (both hot and cold) and was told that hydrogen sulfide was the culprit. I could accept that but for the fact that we do not have the smell coming from our kitchen faucet and the utility sink in the basement. All household water is conditioned by a water softener. What could be the problem?
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Replies
Hi,
It's probably bacteria. To fix it, you shock the well with bleach/sodium hypochlorite (sp?).
Here's one web site I found that describes how to fix the problem.
I've done it with my well and it works as advertised.
http://www.extension.umn.edu/catalog/item.html?item=5941
http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/naturalresources/DD5941.html
Edit: I also found in the early stages the smell only came from one or two faucets. It did spread eventually.
Tan fat looks just like muscle!
Edited 12/31/2003 2:32:34 PM ET by Ken in Maryland
Try the search function. We've discussed this issue in length several times over the last coupla of years.
The last poster is correct about the bacteria. However, a bleech shock treatment wears off after the bleech gets more and more diluted from the water table replacing the well water being drawn off. That new water coming in will have more bacteria to replace the dead ones.
Water heater manufacturers have done considerable research on this issue. I suspect (at least in my experience), that your smelly water is coming from the hot side rather than the cold. These bacteria seem to live better in warmer waters than cold.
Since my problem became more evident after changing out the heater, upon a call to the manufacturer, they sent me a new, different metal, sacrifical anode - at no charge. Helped somewhat.
What helped more was to keep the hot water flowing. If I went out of town for a few days and then took a shower, it was awful. But the next day, it was fine.
Your water conditioning company may also have suggestions based upon your area. UV lights, filters, and such possibly can help.
I never noticed this problem growing up -- we had a 440 foot well then. Had a propane water heater too, so...
Don't know how deep my current one is but I'm pretty sure it's shallower based on new construction norms.
Anyway, just wondering if that affects the bacteria?
Tan fat looks just like muscle!
Interesting point you make.
Based upon my long ago clinical laboratory career as well as college microbiology classes, I understand different types of bacteria exist in different locations, but not all everyplace.
My foul experiences began after I had a new well drilled in the house that I had built 15 years prior. The original well went down 120 feet. Since I was running a "pump and dump" ground water heat pump, said well eventually failed to produce sufficent flow. The driller (because of space constraints), pulled both the pump and complete well casing. Then went down the same hole another 125 feet before hitting another water bearing layer that offered adequate flow. It was this new vein that had the stinky bacteria.
Goldhiller makes some very good comments in his post. Sounds like he's been there and done that also.
Shocking the well with bleach is meant to treat bacteria that has gotten into the well either due to maintenance (the well is opened up for some reason), or unexpected ground water getting into the well. It is meant to be a one-time fix for a one-time problem.
If the bacteria is persistent or recurring, then it's a different problem, and you're better off with a UV filter. Around here, you can't get a mortgage if the bacteria count is not 0.
Sounds like this is problem is caused by sulfate-reducing bacteria, as others here have mentioned. If you're lucky and that odor is actually only in the hot water, then changing out the standard magnesium rod for an aluminum rod in the WH may well resolve the odor issues.
If the odor actually is in both cold and hot water, then you'll have to take more drastic measures for reliable control/elimination. Ultraviolet light treatment on the supply main may be all that's needed, but maybe not.
Any iron in your water? If so, a more comprehensive treatment may be desirable or necessary. For more on that and other possible contaminates and their treatment….. http://forums.prospero.com/n/mb/message.asp?webtag=tp-breaktime&msg=37344.1
This would really be a good time to have your water tested by a lab. At this time, you're concerned about this odor, but there may be more serious issues that you're unaware of because they're tasteless and odorless. It's wise and best if you know what's in there before you decide what needs doing and what to do about it. At a minimum, I'd recommend having it checked for iron, nitrates, nitrites, heavy metals, arsenic and fecal coliforms.
Keep the dog away from the wellhead.
Live, Love, Forgive and Forget
quittintime
In some cases simply replacing the magnesium anode in the WH with an aluminum one (or just removing the mag anode entirely) eliminates most of the problem. In other cases not.
Chit,
Had the same reappearing problem with my [well] water supply for years. Complete draining of the system, shocking the well etc, etc, would make the problem temporarily go away. One day (when the water got stinky a week after the whole routine, the light bulb in my head went on., To make a long story short...the bacteria were in the top section of the pressure tank. I found a way to shock the entire tank with bleach and haven't had a problem since.
Jon
I found a way to shock the entire tank with bleach and haven't had a problem since.
Funny I never thought of that. My water from a dug well has recently produced the occasional skanky whiff. I shocked the well today. I assumed the shocked water would purify the whole system.
How do you shock the tank?However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results. Winston Churchill
Since you seem to be in the midst of doing this (in the mood so to speak) and Jon ain't back yet, I'll try to do a decent job of filling in.
Whether your pressure tank has been adequately treated already depends upon whether it's a single compartment tank or a bladder type tank. This presumes you filled all plumbing runs in the house with the bleach water once you had it in the well (which means draining and refilling the water heater with the bleach water. If yours is a bladder tank, consider the job done because it likely is. But if a single compartment pressure tank, you've got to get the bleach water in contact with all the surfaces inside that tank which includes those that are usually occupied by the air at the top of the tank. This will require that you have a means to bleed all air out of the tank via the removal of a plug in the top or perhaps the core from the air valve.
Allow this bleach water to sit in the well and all lines and fixtures for a minimum of say, 6 hours. Then its time to purge the water in the well via a sill cock until all traces of bleach odor are gone. Depending on the size of your well, this can take hours of running water. When no odor is left, turn off the well pump and drain the WH again. (Don't forget to turn off the heat to it before you do any of this.) While your waiting for the WH to empty, completely drain the pressure tank also. When done, turn the pump back on and close the inlet to the WH and all house fixtures while the pressure tank refills. When it refills you should automatically have a pretty decent ratio of air to water. Now reopen the inlet to the WH and run water at all fixtures until all traces of bleach odor are gone.
You're done.
If you think all fixtures have already been treated and only a single compartment pressure tank remains, isolate it from the system, turn off the pump while you remove the plug in the top, pour some bleach in it and then allow it to completely fill by turning the pump on until water shoots from the hole in the top. Let it sit for several hours, completely drain (hopefully there's a drain at the bottom of the tank) and refill. It may take several fills and drainings of the tank to get rid of all the odor and taste of the bleach.
Knowledge is power, but only if applied in a timely fashion.
Your explanation was clear, conscise and to the point.
Excellent Post!
Thank You!However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results. Winston Churchill
Not quite as excellent as it should have been. I neglected to say something very important. And that is.......that if you isolate the tank (or not) and then go to remove the plug or valve core, ......you're working with things under pressure! So make certain that before you remove that plug or core......you open the drain valve at the bottom of the tank (or a nearby faucet if you haven't isolated the tank) to relieve the pressure and THEN remove the plug or core.
Don't want you or anyone else to get hurt here because of my neglect.
Knowledge is power, but only if applied in a timely fashion.
Good point on relieving the tank pressure, no sense taking a bath till spring.... ;]However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results. Winston Churchill
Turtleneck,
Goldhiller did a great job explaining. Not exactly how I did mine, but pretty darn close, I Used a funnel and hose to get 2 gallons of bleach in my [non-bladder] pressure tank. It took about 8 gallons of bleach total, in selective sequence, to ultimately solve my 7 year old reoccurring (every month or two) "smelly" water problem. I'm now at month 6, and water is great.
Jon
Edited 1/3/2004 1:00:27 PM ET by WorkshopJon
It looks like the initial shock to the well solved my odor problems. I'm new to the well water game and will probably shock the well on a regular basis just to be sure. How much and how often is something I'll have to figure out after I talk a little more with my neighbors.
Before I bought this place I noticed that ( I don't want to call him a Plumber) the guy who did the plumbing found that you can save alot of time and elbows by cutting out all of the supporting floor members. While fixing that, I moved some pipes around and flooded my system with rust, the old galvanized pressure tank appeared to be the culprit so I replaced it with a new bladder tank. The bladder was broken in the old tank. I isolated the hot water tank and let it sit for a few days so the rust would settle. Yeah, DW was not too happy about that. The water is now running super clear with the occasional stink burst, It might be the hot water tank but I'll wait to see if this is a curable problem before I go replacing that.
Thats my story, but the reason I'm so interested in the shock process is that DW's mother has recently started looking for a place in the area. The Bank won't consider financing unless the water test passes for e-coli and arsenic. One of the places has been sitting for a while and I'm pretty sure the water won't pass, but at least I can give it a good try with all of the information you and Jon have given me. Thanks again.
However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results. Winston Churchill
Getting a yet viable well to pass arsenic and e-coli standards shouldn't really be all that difficult, relatively speaking.
If a chlorinator was mounted on the well, it would be much easier to assure that a sample taken at any given moment would not only pass e-coli scrutiny but that the well is actually in a safe to drink condition 24/7/365. I'm sure you realize that the objective isn't to momentarily hoodwink health officials so that a person can then use an unsafe water supply once they leave, but rather to make certain the water supply is safe. But I'm also just as certain that there are those who would like to do such a thing. I've met a few.
And as others have reported here, I'm sure you realize that shocking a well is no guarantee of continued freedom from problems or continued safety of the supply. Sometimes it works, frequently it doesn't. Frequently a chlorinator or an ultra-violet light is required to deal with specific constant issues.
I can't remember all of what was said in the previous discussion concerning these things (see link in previous post), so I might be repeating what was already covered when I say that "high" arsenic levels aren't usually all that difficult to overcome in the presence of some ferrous iron in the raw water supply. Add some chlorine and the arsenic bonds to the iron. Install a filter-sand filter unit in the line to remove the resulting ferric iron and its hitchhiker and the bulk of the arsenic will be removed right there. And then, believe it or not, a properly operating water softener will remove approx. 50% of what remains.
For many years on end, the acceptable arsenic level for potable water was set at 50 PPB. Recently however, that level was reduced to10 PPB, effective sometime in 2006. The wells in the immediate area here have mostly hovered in that 50 PPB range (some a bit above that) for time immemorial and there haven't been any discernable health consequences to those who partook of it their entire lives, but it's likely best to achieve the new standard anyway. After chlorination and filtering (which I installed years ago to deal with the iron), our potable supply tests at 3.5 PPB. Raw supply from our well is at 51 PPB. We have 4.5 PPM of ferrous iron to assist in the task.
It sounds like you and the bankers may suspect unacceptable arsenic levels. In that regard, you might find yourself up against it trying to prove a safe supply if the bankers demand such prior to financing and closing on the property. Although the proven techniques of making water safe to drink are readily available for them to consult, they must also be equipped with ears to hear. I haven't personally met any bankers yet who understand well water and its treatment enough to realize that the drilling of a new well will likely result in hitting the same source with the same basic arsenic levels.
The bank I'm sure wants to see a "safe" supply because it feels its investment would be in jeopardy otherwise, but that isn't necessarily so. We have many folks in this area who simply refuse to make the investment in treating their well water so that it is "safe" to drink by the new arsenic standards. They've decided to buy bottled water for consumption instead. These folks wouldn't turn their nose up at a property on that basis. Perhaps there are new regulations regarding arsenic levels and property sales that I'm unaware of at this time, but around here the state tests the water prior to sale and if found to be free of fecal coliforms and such, they give clearance for the sale to proceed.
Edit: Just for the record.....There are literally hundreds of strains of e-coli to be found in water supplies that are harmless to humans. The major concern revolves around just one strain of the critter.
Knowledge is power, but only if applied in a timely fashion.
Edited 1/4/2004 11:08:23 AM ET by GOLDHILLER
Edited 1/4/2004 11:14:30 AM ET by GOLDHILLER
Once again I am awed by the amount of information you have given me. As I mentioned before I know little about well water, but you are changing that rapidly.
I should clarify that the pupose of shocking the well is not to dupe the bank. The fact is, the house we are looking at has been vacant and it is likely the well and the water in the system has been standing for some time. The realtor thought the standing water might affect the test results.
Here, we are responsible for testing the water prior to sale. The cost is either $50 or $100 CDN depending on how detailed the test information.
The house sits about 500 yards from the ocean (Nova Scotia) and the well is dug. Behind the house are miles of woods. No industry, no development that I know of in the area.
I don't believe that arsenic is a local problem but I will check into that.However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results. Winston Churchill
Wow! Sounds more scenic than here in corn country. <G>
Hope all goes well for you folks. (pun intended)
And yes, I think your realtor is right. A shock is definitely in order in that situation.
Again...best wishes.
Knowledge is power, but only if applied in a timely fashion.
Some wells around here have some natural sulfides that make the water smell bad. No bacteria involved. There's a fairly simple treatment unit for it. Compressed air is mixed into the water after the pressure tank. It reacts with the sulfides and makes an insoluble compound that you just filter out. Your water comes out of the tap slightly fizzy because of the compressed air, but no smell. I installed a system on my well and it works fine. Parts were around $300. Don't know what installation would be since I did it myself. I just copied a similar system at a neighbor's house. Probably half the wells around here have this problem. Don't know why you'd have the smell on some faucets but not others regardless of the source of the problem.
"Don't know why you'd have the smell on some faucets but
not others regardless of the source of the problem."
We had the same symptom here when we first bought the place and before I installed the treatment system. Changing out our rod for an aluminum one did reduce the odor considerably but not entirely. (Sometimes the magic works, sometimes it doesn't.) Anyway, the odor was much more intense in the upstairs bathroom than anywhere else and most intense first thing in the morning. I may be wrong about this, but I attributed it to the configuration of the pipes. Hydrogen sulfide gas rising of its own accord up those pipes because they were the first in line on the branches of the house plumbing. There was detectable odor on the other fixtures in the house, but much less than those upstairs.
Knowledge is power, but only if applied in a timely fashion.
Whole house filter with 5 micron element does it for me. Before I added the softener, I'd go through a filter in 2 weeks, with the softener in line before the filter, they last ~2 months.
Mike
Just a thought, after reading all the posts.
If you have mesh filters in the faucet spouts, it might be helpful to pull those out and give them a good scrubbing and disinfecting. The mesh would trap some particulate, including any that would support bacteria (and other growing things!).
Also, your local public health authorities may (if you are lucky) have some knowledge of the local water issues and may have information on solutions which have worked for others.
BJ
Sorry for coming in a little late on this, but I'm thankful that I've found someone else who has experienced a problem that I'm having. I too have well water that is producing a bad odor only on the cold side of my kitchen faucet. Here's my scenario:
A few months ago, the original (PEX I believe) 20" cold water supply line on my faucet sprung a leak. Not sure why, but I figured no big deal I'll just replace it with one of those nice braided ones from the homecenter. Things get knocked around under the kitchen sink so I figured it was good insurance.
A few weeks later, the cold water started to smell. First time this has happened since I had the house built 4 years ago.
It got worse and worse until I thought, maybe something's wrong with that line. I replaced it with one of the fabric reinforced vinyl types and bingo, problem solved. I was stumped.
A month later, the smell is back. Only on this faucet, only on the cold side.
Any Thoughts???? By the way, the kitchen sink sits directly above my expansion tank in the basement. Not sure what type it is, but it's big and blue.
Appreciate any thoughts you guys might have. Don't want my kids drinking bad water. THANKS!