Smelly water

[Max]

Hi, Folks.

We have private well water.

My wife told me that the water was smelling like rotten eggs. I checked the cold water and it reeks. Recently I noted that our water was a little discoloured so yesterday I changed the inline filter that is after our softener. I checked the brine tank and noted that it had no salt left which basically means that the softener would not have been getting recharged properly. Oops. I went to Sears to buy some more salt and they didn't have the usual stuff I get (Morton's Solar Salt - blue bag) so I got some other stuff. It's Mortons in the green bag and contains Rust Raze - it's for people with iron in their water. We have a high iron content so I thought this salt may be better. I got the salt home and ran the water softerner recycyle. That lasted from 7:30 - 9pm. My wife noted that the water reeked last night at about midnight.

I know water smelling like rotten eggs is a popular problem - at least when you google it there is a lot of information about it. To me is seems a little coincidental that I should run my water softener recharge with new salt and now it stinks. I should mention that I also put in some iron out when I recharged the softener. I figured that it wouldn't hurt. I've used iron out many times before without any issues.

I just checked the water that comes from the well i.e. before the water has passed through the softener and there is no odour at all. It seems like the water is picking up the odour from the softener. I've only tested cold water so far so I know the issue is not to do with the heater.

I am going to run another recharge to see if that fixes anything.

Any ideas of what could cause this issue and what steps I need to rectify it? If necessary I can easily get the normal blue bag salt I get, change the salt in the brine barrel and recharge the softener again.

Cheers, Max

[mrcaptainbob]

Hi, Max. When was the last time the well and house water system was disinfected? I had that issue in my last house and, after chlorinating it 'by-the-book', it was fine.

[majakdragon]

I had the same problems when I lived in Florida. Twice a year, I had to clean the supply lines with bleach. I would shut off the water supply at the filter (after the softener) and empty the filter cartridge. I then filled the cartridge with chlorine bleach and turned the water back on. I then opened the faucet on the last fixture (which was a tub in my case) and let the cold water run until I smelled bleach. I then repeated adding bleach to the filter cartridge and opened the next closest faucet. I did this until every faucet had bleach water coming out. Then I let it sit about a half hour and flushed the entire system out with fresh water. First time I did this, I could not believe what the water looked like. I did not flush the hot water lines as I had a water heater that was "hidden" in a wall and access was VERY difficult. If your water heater can be easily drained after the bleach treatment, you may want to do all the lines. I did not flush the toilet line either as I did not want to take the chance of the bleach eating the seals in the toilet tank.

[Max]

Hi, Guys.

We've never had the system cleaned but the water seems to have lost it's odour now. I backwashed the system 3x and that seems to have done the trick. I'm thinking that perhaps the backwash funtion wasn't working correctly without the salt in the brine tank. Maybe the water that was standing in the brine tank was funky. I dunno, I'm just glad the bathroom only stinks when it is supposed to now.

Cheers, Max

[mrcaptainbob]

Ha! Good one, Max. Glad it worked out the easy way for ya'!