Smell in well water

[Sharon Lang]

Had well treated twice w 250 gallons chlorinated water. Rod taken out of hot water tank. Water softener treated with bleach. Water tested and have removed bacteria. 10 days later smell back. Suggestions?

 

[Reach4]

Had well treated twice w 250 gallons chlorinated water. Rod taken out of hot water tank. Water softener treated with bleach. Water tested and have removed bacteria. 10 days later smell back. Suggestions?

https://terrylove.com/forums/index....izing-extra-attention-to-4-inch-casing.65845/ is my sanitizing write-up. Your method of having 250 gallons of water put into the well may have been as effective, but maybe not. The method I describe includes recirculation and monitoring the chlorine level and pH to see if the bleach and/or vinegar have been consumed and more needed. It takes longer, so it may be harder to adapt to somebody doing it for you. It would need 2 or more visits I think. It is written from a DIY point of view, so for commercial single visit, significant adjustments would be needed. Two visits could maybe do it. Your 250 gallons should have done the flooding volume well.

The person sanitizing your well may be familiar with wells in your area, and know how much chlorine and acid are needed rather than adjusting the chlorine and acid after several hours. When I did mine, I had to add a significant amount more bleach and vinegar after several hours. If I just added the total bleach and chlorine needed last time for the next time, maybe that would be good. However that might have my pressure tank and other stuff exposed to higher peak chlorine levels and lower pH.

Regarding the anode, you could get a powered anode that would protect like aluminum without contributing to H2S production. Some powered anodes are better than others.

But you might need a backwashing filter or other treatment. My backwashing H2S+iron filter does nicely for me. It uses 1.5 cuft of Centaur Carbon media. It has a bleach solution used during backwash every 3 days, and then rinsed out. Every 33 days, I refill the solution tank. It uses a 5 gpm backwash. Katalox Light is supposed to be able to remove H2S. A similar amount of KL would need about 8 gpm of backwash. Those systems also deal with iron. I bought mine mainly for the H2S, but getting the iron out is a nice thing too.

There are other systems certainly.

 

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[ditttohead]

Smell? Need more information. Do you have a water test you can post? Is the smell musty, rotten egg, metallic, ???

 

[WellOff]

Be sure to thoroughly shock your distribution lines. If you have dead-ends in your plumbing they might be housing bacteria; this makes it difficult to eradicate.

 

[ditttohead]

https://view.publitas.com/impact-water-products/2018-catalog-final/page/282-283

Here is an article I wrote on the proper sanitizing methods for plumbing.