Sulfur Water. What to Do?

[Alan_L_Texas]

Around here, where you have water that smells like rotten eggs, they recommend using an old type standard galvanized pressure tank rather than bladder tank so that the water makes contact with air. They say this causes the sulfide gas thats dissolved in the water to oxidize and releases into the air. I put in such a tank on the assumption that I would have the problem since my nearest neighbor does, but I have never smelled any such smell from my water, and frankly wonder whether my water has the problem at all.

[Steelfan]

Thanks for the suggestion, Alan. I'm not sure if they sell that type of tank anymore around these parts. Thanks again.
Kent

[dummy]

Wherever you got that number from, it's been superceded. That number now goes to the university's garden information center. Got an email address from them to the dept. of health, described my problem in detail and got this in reply:
<font color="blue"> The smell could be from two possible sources:
1. If the house was vacant for a while, the smell could have built up in the hot water heater tank or holding tank. Flushing the tank should alleviate the problem.
2. Your well could be affected by the drought. If it turns out to be a problem with the well, you may have to drill deeper.

There are three methodologies approved by the Safe Drinking Water Program for sulfate:

1. Ion Chromatography - EPA method 300.0, ASTM method D4327-91, or Standard Methods 4110B.

2. Automated Methylthymol Blue - EPA method 375.2, or Standard Methods 4500-SO4-F.

3. Gravimetric Method with Ignition of Residue - Standard Methods 4500-SO4-C and D.
</font color>
Sorry for the late reply, been a little hectic lately. So, back where I started. Thanks for the help though.

[b249]

After we installed our softener our H2O developed a sulfer smell. The wife was not at all happy w/ this. Turns out it (as I recall, anyway) was a chemical reaction with the "softened" water and the sacrificial anode in the hot water tank. I removed the sacrificial anode and put a plug in; a short time later the smell was gone.

Don't know if it'll work for you though. Good Luck!!

b249

[cam0148]

I have tried numerous different devices to get rid of the sulfer smell.

Depending on how bad the smell is the small $40 carbon filters will probably not work. I have tried a large ($1000) potassum permangante (spl?) system and that did not work very well at all. Finally I purchased a Inline Chlorination System. Basically a smaller version of what the city's use to treat their water. It consists of a 80g holding tank with a small pressure system to feed the house. The holding tank is then treated with chlorine to kill the bactiera.

The system works extreamly well and I have had no complaints or smell at all. My wife is now very happy!!

The system is expensive, I paid $5000 (canandian that is) for the system and would easily do it again if needed.

Jeff

[mikell]

I agree with the anode. A house I have just had a new well drilled and about a week later the hot water began to stink to high heaven. Removed the anode and gone.

mikell

[fivestring]

A water softner will not take the sulpher smell out. Like one response had... a chlorinator and/or ultrviolet light can help, but a water softner basically just keeps rust/lime stains down to a manageable level.

[Phred]

I also had this problem and went the chlorine (Cl) route.
Problem solved, and I know my water is safe since its now chlorinated.

My unit is a dry pellet type. Drops the pellets down the well.
Much cheaper ~$1000 US, which I think is about $2000 can?

The only tricky part is getting it set so it drops the right amount down the well. I am still tweaking it for maximum bug killing power but not to much Cl smell.
The good news is on any setting it flat put a stop to the bad smell and yellow stains.

You must make sure that you have a clear drop path in your well to use one of these. For deep wells this may be a problem.

Mine is very deep (~650 feet) but it still works.
It took some adjustment to get the pellets to fall clear of the pipes, wire, etc...

An alternative would be to use a pump to fill an underground tank that the Cl falls into. This would ensure contact time between the water and Cl as well as give you a storage capacity for dry times. A second much smaller pump could then feed a pressure tank to the house.

Fred

[fratomdev]

Hi All,

New to the forum. We have sulfur water. I have an aeration system that was installed 6 years ago and works great. I also have a friend that has the chlorination system and he says that works also. I like the idea of the aeration system. Probably about twice a year I have to reset the air pressure because the adjustment has drifted, but it is easy and simple, nothing to add. It consists of a small aeration pump and a fiberglass tank the size of a large welding cylinder. Everytime the well pump starts the aeration pump starts and the excess air is removed via a float valve on the top of the tank. I think we paid about $1500 and that was with a filter to get some of the iron out (we don't have much). If you call any water treatment place they will help you out. We were on city water before we moved out here. Our first hot showers were a shock with the stink. It took us one day to decide to put the sytem in and it was well worth it.

LOL, Frank

[Lisa]

We only have sulfur smell from our hot water. also get the yellowing of the fixtures etc. we have a sedament filter and a uv filter. the house sat for about 4-6 monthes empty. we're going to try shocking our hot water tank and pipes with a couple gallons of bleach (we've already shocked the well) hoping that that will clear it up. we also have mainly plastic pipes if that makes any difference.