Cant Ya Smell That Smell

PARA1

Customer called today complaining that the water from all fixtures smells . they just bought the place, it's on a well. They state WH IS'NT ON YET .They moved here(TX) from (CALIF) .What could it be?

Grumpyplumber

Whatever is in the water table.
I know a guy with sulphur in his, even with conditioners it still smells like someone let one go when the faucets on.
You could luck out and find out it's stagnant water...I'm assuming "They state WH IS'NT ON YET" means the water isn't on yet(?).

JamesNLA

WH....= Water Heater??

California people arn't used to well water. Good chance to make some money cleaning it up!

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Grumpyplumber

<~~~dense.


Back to square one...water content.
BTW James...great team!
How da heck does a left coaster wind up rootin' fer da sox?

The plumber

Did the smell start when you got there or before? Is it hot and cold smelling or just hot? If it's hot check the anode rod in the w.h. Both---filter that nasty water. My moms well is next to the septic lat lines. I never realized what that after taste was until I got into plumbing. just kidding, I'm sure the water is filtered pretty well by the time it reaches the water table, but I still can't drink her water

Herk

Two possibilities - if it's on the cold as well as hot water, probably something like iron in the well - bacteria like iron.

Or, if it's just coming from the water heater, bacteria also like to mess with the anode rod, as previously mentioned, and it can cause (sometimes) a nasty silicone-looking gel inside the heater that can destroy the lower element. (if electric.) The gel insulates the element from water and causes it to fail. I had one quite a number of years ago that was in a new house that sat four months before it was sold. It was an electric WH with a 6" hand-hole cleanout on the side. I moved the (full) 50-gallon heater to the front porch with a dolly, drained it into the yard - opened the cleanout and found a thick mass of goo.

But it's also not abnormal to simply have a smell caused by bacteria/anode in the water heater and letting water run through it for a while would clear that up.

stp57

Is there any way to circulate CLR (calcium, lime & rust cleaner) through the water heater? I'm amazed at what it does in the coffee & teapots, I'm just not sure how to effectively run it throughout the tank?
Steve

TimNJ

Are you piped in plastic?
See my post "Stinky Water". No doubt it is a sulphur. In my case don't know why it is only evident on the plastic supply hose.

Pete M

It really depends on what the smell is. Well systems that have been sitting for a while usually need to have the well bleached to kill the accumulated bacteria. But, bleaching will also change the properties of any iron in the water. Bleaching is a simple procedure. Leave it to a Water Conditioning company. They'll have to test the water and the equipment as well.

neolitic

Don't know if this will help any of you but...
Customer on well had new W/H installed and smell got WAY worse than normal.
I changed her diodes to the aluminum/tin/zinc ones and it didn't seem to help.
Until I poured 6, 8oz bottles of hydrogen peroxide in and let it sit for an hour.
Smell never came back--at least as far as the customer's nose could tell.
BTW you don't have to flush all of the peroxide out, it's not harmful,
especially when it's that diluted. (people use it as mouth wash all the time)
Good luck, this stuff can be a real bear, and it's hard to tell when the treatment guys are just trying to sell their pet system.

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Driftwood

Lots of well, and water specialists at this other site!
Go to Terry Loves Plumbing Forum. Go to well forum.
Some of Us are on several sites, Good luck.