Any plumbers out there?

[jeepit]

Just recently our well water has gotten a sulpher smell to it. Any ideas what causes this?

Talked to a friend of mine and he suggested getting a charcoal filter or that a tube in the water is bad?

Or is it something in the well itself?

 

[DogramTD]

Hydrogen sulfide gas (H2S), generally caused by decaying organic matter. Generally one of the fixes would be to superchlorinate the well for 24 hours. I was going to give you a write up (since water is my job) but I figured someone else already has. Check out this link from the minnesota rural water ***. , it will give you some good info.



Why Does My Water Smell Like Rotten Eggs



Good luck! BTW, the is gas is annoying but not harmful.

 

[Skydiver]

31 years working in a water treatment plant.
1st is your well a 24-30 inch bore or is it a 6-8 inch drill? My guess is it's a large bore shallow type. The deep drill wells almost never give any problems once you purge the sand from them, at least around here.
It is very important that you find out what has psysically intered your water supply. Has any industry (mining) developed around you lately? Keep in mind that ground water travels in inches per day so the contaminate might have came around years ago. Have you looked inside your well to see if there is anything floating around such as a dead animal. That is my guess and you better hope I'm right because it is easily corrected. Contaminated ground water can take many months to purge.
At a hunting camp we had a possum fall into the well. Took a 5 gallon plastic bucket and drill 10 or so 1/2 inch holes in the bottom. Attach a 5 lb weight to the bottom so the bucket will remain verticle. You know the rest.
Run as much water on the ground as your well will produce. Then pour a gallon of bleach in. Run a garden hose back into the well for 20 minutes to mix the bleach. Let it sit for 24 hours. Again pump as much as you can onto the ground being careful where the bleach runs off. Get a simple pool chlorine testor and stop running the water on the ground when the CL2 level drops to 3. 0 ppm. I would recommend finding the nearest lab to run a bacteria test on the water. PM me your number if you need to talk. Will be free (and awake) after 5am cst on Saturday.
Some wells produce sulfer. That is a completly different animal.
Good Luck

 

[fest3er]

If you're near coal country, that could be a source of it.

Down here in SW VA, we have lots of iron (wreaks havoc on plumbing fixtures and laundry) and sulphur (just stinks). The solution that works best is to aerate the water (inject air into the water). The air causes the iron to coagulate. It happens to do the same for sulphur. Then the water is filtered through a 'sand' tank that captures the coagulated particles. Periodically, the tank is backflushed. We haven't had sulphur smell or iron in years.

 

[Gene Arnold]

How far from your well is your septic system? Many years ago my well water started to stink like you describe. The culprit was a very shallow well that was too close to my septic system - ugh!



Gene

 

[CKelley1]

we have that problem a lot in this area. i build water and sewer treatment plants. it is kind of a pain to treat just one house but it can be done. you will need some extra room in your well house. take a sample of the water to kenetico to see if a green sand filter alone will take the h2s out. if it is to high you will have to add chlorine injection and a carbon filter. you will need two vertical collum fiberglass bladder tanks. the sand and carbon filters are pressure rated vessels. from the well the sodium hypochlorite is injected into the water and to the first bladder tank next through the sand filter to the carbon filter and to the final bladder tank

 

[jeepit]

I am on the western shore of Lake Michigan. No coal mines no farm fields. It is an 8" case at 132 feet. 8 years ago we had a mound system but sewer was run past our property so by Wisconsin law had destroy a perfectly operating syaytem and hook up to sewer.

It seems it smells more after the softener cycles?

 

[GHarman]

Geology or polution?

Not being a scientist, just an observer. With a "recent" change in odor, I would suspect a contaminated well. Have you had your water checked for bacteria and chemical contamination?

I have experienced sulfur water from two sources, both geological. One in West Virginia and another close to home from a recently drilled well. That one oozes flowstone at a leaky pipe union and is foul with hydrogen sulfide. The owners have to disconnect their demand hot water heater annually and flush out the heating coils with a vinegar solution to keep the coil from blockage from the forming flowstone(calcium deposits). We are in an area of old volcanos that include diverse mineral deposits that can ruin water for drinking.

Taking a sample of your water to an analyist my provide clues in how to deal with this problem.

A 132' deep well is not deep from a ground water standpoint. How far away is your abandon mounded leach field and tank. Did you pump out your tank before abandoning it, or did you pull it and dispose of it. Gene Arnold hit that nail on the head!

The ideas of treating the issue are all good. However, it is a recent developement as I understand your post. You need to find out why it stinks before treating the water. You may save some money and yourself alot of headaches. Wish you "well"! GregH

 

[Skydiver]

Goid point GHarman.
Jeepit. Talk to your neighbors on both sides about the water problem. At the very least add a pint of bleach, run a hose back into the well for 20 minutes. Run water every where inside the home and the outside spigots including icemaker. Turn off your ice maker once it cycles. Go to bed. Next morning wash a few loads of white clothes to purge the bleach. Test for excess chlorine. This will iinsure that the bacteria is not present. Call the closest water utility and ask them if they will run a Bacteria test. Normally costs $15-25 and takes 24 hours. You will have to use their bottle. You cannot use any other bottle. Do this a few days after you treat the well and do it again in 10 days to find out if the bacteria is returning.
I would run as much water from your well as possible to remove the problem, plus doing this will tell you if the problem is local or wide spread.
Don't drink the water untill you run the bac-T test.
Also check the smell right where the water comes from the well to find out if the problem might be inside your plumbing system. Take that water inside and microwave it until it reaches 90-100F.
A water heater will magnify any taste and odor problems.

 

[jeepit]

Water test came back negative for any harmful substances in water. So I guess the next step is to chlorinate? Skydiver-Why should I run a water hose into the well? Someone else had suggested putting some bleach in the softener also?

We are on sewer now. Our mound system was dismantled years ago. Tanks were pumped out and destroyed. A perfectly good operating system shut down by the WDNR just because sewer was run past our property.

 

[Skydiver]

The reason you run water back into the well is to mix up the bleach. Plus this washes down any bleach that gets placed on the walls of the well. Bleach will destroy some things. I would not put this high levels of chlorine into the softener. I would disconnect the softner while super chlorinating the well. We don't need/use softeners around here. We have 15-20 grains of hardness in our water.
Ok, I'LL try to make it simple. H2o + CL2 = gives off a hypochlorite ion. Basically when you mix bleach and water it yields a mild form of HCL. The HCL is what kills the germs. In your case you have no bacteria if the lab was correct. I have been certified to run bacteria test just 4 years ago.
Click here and go to chapter 8.

Water treatment operator handbook - Google Books

The main problem we have in our region was Iron and Manganese. Those minerals are listed on your vitamin bottle. I say "was" because organics that cause taste and odor problems are getting higher every year. This is from fertilizer and nitrogen. People give off nitrogen every morning. We are no longer allowed to use chlorine in our pretreatment process because in theory it causes cancer. (Screw that) We are using a chemical called potasium permanganate KMnO4 which costs more than gold. I say these things because I will not give out false imformation. In my job If I fail people get sick and/or die. Besides that I will get a fine so large it could cost me my home. We still use sodium hypochlorite 12. 5% in our post treatment process. House hold bleach is 3 1/2 % available chlorine.

JEEPIT. You will need a cheap chlorine test kit from any pool supply or w-mart. Because if you leave too much CL2 (chlorine) in your well you will begin to look like a convict with diaherra. Meaning your clothes will turn white and your bowels will turn loose. I had a foot valve on a well that failed years ago and it made a small community of folks sick. When the foot valve failed it sucked all the bleach from the tank down into the well. Bleach will clean you out !!! Reread my posts and PM me your phone # if needed. I go back to work Tuesday night. I'm usually free to do what I want at work. Hence the 31 years. I've got it made until the floods arrive. Then I really have to earn my pay.

 

[jeepit]

Ok. Chlorinated the well yesterday. Solution was in place for 8 hours in the well and the cold water lines in the house. Then ran well for 3 hours to get the solution out. The water softener was bypassed when we did the job. Still have some lingering "bleach" smell but smells much better than the rotten egg smell we had.

We will see what happens from here.

 

[BullyDogJason]

If anything i learned alot from this thread