 | ||||
| ||||
waterheaterrescue.com > Forums > The Tank > Removed Anodes from Water Heaters and Water Smells worse than ever |
| | ||||
| ||||
waterheaterrescue.com > Forums > The Tank > Removed Anodes from Water Heaters and Water Smells worse than ever |
| Moderated by: Admin |
|
||||||||||||||
| Removed Anodes from Water Heaters and Water Smells worse than ever | Rate Topic |
| Author | Post |
|---|
| Posted: Sun Mar 7th, 2010 06:13 am |
|
1st Post |
|
BEBower Member
|
Hi, Hopefully someone will have an idea if I did something wrong or not. This is my first post but I looked around on the forum and have an idea that the smell I'm getting is the infamous rotten egg smell--but I don't why now and I think my solution missed the mark. Background: I have had installed over 26 horrible days a new geothermal system. I had to have a new well drilled for it and at first everything seemed fine. The geothermal came with two water heaters, the first holds the 100 degree water from the geothermal unit, then that is hooked into a natural gas unit to heat it the remaining degrees. The first unit is acting as a storage tank, but doesn't actually heat the water. The gas water heater heats. Going back to the water history. After the new well was installed we noticed that the water didn't smell bad. We had it tested and it came out with 2.3 iron and a hardness of 23, sulfur was borderline but the water softener man said we won't need a unit to take out odor. Two weeks after the full geo was installed we noticed that the cold water smelled increasingly bad, rotten eggs, it began to smell just awful. So I thought, let's take out the rods in both water heaters and that will fix the problem. It's worse than ever. Do I have several problems now? From my reading it seems that I screwed up by taking out the rods as the water heaters will rust out. And it doesn't make sense to me that it is the cold water that is smelly. What do you think is going on and what should I do with these water heaters? Buy new rods? Buy one powered and one not? Which metal should I get. And how to fix the smelly cold water--the original problem. Off the beaten path a bit, but does anyone know of a water softener that not only softens but handles the smell. (Do have a softener, could the settings on it be messed up. I even read that I could have bacteria...my wife is not happy about it and I can't understand how it just gradually got worse and worse. Thanks for any help and advice. Attachment: Water Heaters Geo sm.jpg (Downloaded 33 times)
|
||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
| Posted: Sun Mar 7th, 2010 10:28 pm |
|
2nd Post |
|
woodysil Member
|
Try putting about 2 pints of bleach in each tank then reinstall the anode rods. Do not drink the water from the hot side of your system until the bleach is gone. A bacteria causes the smell problem. Good Luck!
|
|||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||
| Posted: Mon Mar 8th, 2010 01:36 am |
|
3rd Post |
|
elenano GCF-GL 
|
Woodysil, Ordinarily that would be good advice, but there are other things going on here. Cold water shouldn't smell bad. He had asked me directly and I don't have a good answer myself, so I asked him to post here. I'd like Larry Weingarten's take on this when he comes up for air from the many, many things on his plate. Randy Schuyler
|
||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
| Posted: Mon Mar 8th, 2010 04:49 am |
|
4th Post |
|
BEBower Member
|
Can I use Hydrogen Peroxide instead of bleach? Or isn't it as good? Thanks for the advice, I'm wondering about something that maybe doesn't make sense...I had a plumber install a hot water return line, could he have introduced bacteria into the system when he was handling the pipes?
|
|||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||
| Posted: Mon Mar 8th, 2010 05:16 am |
|
5th Post |
|
elenano GCF-GL
|
Absolutely you should use peroxide. It's much safer than bleach and does the same thing. But I have a feeling that's not the solution here. I don't think this is the plumber's fault. When there IS bacteria in the water that cause the odor, they are in the well water. It's not quite like having cooties. It's just something that is otherwise harmless except that it reacts with aluminum or magnesium and makes rotten eggs.  That said, I'm still intrigued by the cold-water odor. Larry may yet put in an appearance this evening. He's not quite as elusive as the Great Pumpkin (yet). Randy Schuyler
|
||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
| Posted: Mon Mar 8th, 2010 11:02 pm |
|
6th Post |
|
eleent Member
|
Great Pumpkin? Anyway, I'd like to know the path cold water takes to get into your home. Does it go through a filter, holding tank...? Does all the cold water smell, even from the bibbs outside? Bypass the softener to see if that has an effect on the smell; let us know the result. If that's the source of odor, the result will be fast. Are you on well or city water? Yours, Larry
|
|||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||
| Posted: Tue Mar 9th, 2010 03:16 am |
|
7th Post |
|
BEBower Member
|
Those are great suggestions...I can't believe I didn't think of them. It's past 11 pm now, but I'll try those when I get home tomorrow. Thank you....it will really narrow down what is the problem.
|
||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
| Posted: Wed Mar 10th, 2010 12:59 am |
|
8th Post |
|
BEBower Member
|
Did the bypass on the softener and cold water stinks...sounds like it means the well is somehow stinky now but it wasn't for a few weeks before. Is it worth trying the peroxide at this point or call the well people and see if they can retest it for contamination. Seems odd that it would be okay, but now it is not.
|
|||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||
| Posted: Wed Mar 10th, 2010 02:14 pm |
|
9th Post |
|
katy Member
|
You may have to do a shock chlorination on your well. We have heavy duty iron bacteria in our well and we do the shock chlorination every 2 years. HTH, katy
|
||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
| Posted: Fri Mar 12th, 2010 05:07 pm |
|
10th Post |
|
eleent Member
|
Hello: Being on a well, you likely have either a big storage tank and get gravity flow from it down to your home or you have a pressure tank at the well. Either of these is a great place for bacteria to camp out. You may have a system without either of these that simply uses a pressure switch to control the pump, but whatever you have, do let us know and we'll narrow down where the bacteria's living room is. Yours, Larry
|
|||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||
| Posted: Fri Mar 12th, 2010 05:47 pm |
|
11th Post |
|
BEBower Member
|
Hi, I am on a well with a pressure tank, two hot water heaters, softener and a reverse osmosis system with storage tank attached to my kitchen sink. I also have a small electric hot water heater at the far end of the house that will be taken out eventually but is still currently attached to the water network. I asked the company who just did our well if they will do another shock chlorination and they are set to do so next week. They wanted me to turn off the water softener before they did the chlorination but I was wondering if the bacteria could be in the water softener...I wasn't sure just what should get the treatment and what shouldn't. For example, should the Reverse Osmosis system get treated...or will the chlorination destroy it's effectiveness. Any advice would be great. Thanks
|
||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
| Posted: Fri Mar 12th, 2010 06:50 pm |
|
12th Post |
|
eleent Member
|
Hello: It's a catch 22. Chlorination will help with odor, but it also damages the zeolite resin in the softener. That's my understanding. I might ask the well folks how they deal with softeners that are likely part of the odor problem. Yours, Larry
|
|||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||
| Current time is 01:19 am | |
| waterheaterrescue.com > Forums > The Tank > Removed Anodes from Water Heaters and Water Smells worse than ever | Top |
