Peroxide or Chlorine for well water treatment?

[Dougryan]

Hi,
My well water has sulfur and iron... it also has some hardness.
The current water treatment system (just moved into this house 2 months ago) includes three particle filters (10 microns), a water softener, and a UV light to kill bacteria.
Even with all of that, I still have discolored toilet bowls, yellowish ice cubes, and a sulfur smell that comes and goes. I just changed two of the three filters and that helped, but not much.

Looking into a new system and while chlorine injection has been around for a long time, it seems that peroxide injection is the latest and greatest.
Any experience you'll care to share?
From what I've learned (two quotes) it seems that the peroxide system is less expensive to buy and maintain.
Due to that, I'm leaning toward peroxide.

If I go with peroxide, do I still need the UV light to kill the coliform bacteria?

Thanks,
Doug

 

[Brianczaw]

I had these issues too. We added a whole house “iron zapper” backwash system and it got rid of the odors and colors. Also, try to determine if all water smells or just hot water?? We swapped out to a stainless steel hot water heater and all our issues went away,

 

[lilranch2001]

Hi,
My well water has sulfur and iron... it also has some hardness.
The current water treatment system (just moved into this house 2 months ago) includes three particle filters (10 microns), a water softener, and a UV light to kill bacteria.
Even with all of that, I still have discolored toilet bowls, yellowish ice cubes, and a sulfur smell that comes and goes. I just changed two of the three filters and that helped, but not much.

Looking into a new system and while chlorine injection has been around for a long time, it seems that peroxide injection is the latest and greatest.
Any experience you'll care to share?
From what I've learned (two quotes) it seems that the peroxide system is less expensive to buy and maintain.
Due to that, I'm leaning toward peroxide.

If I go with peroxide, do I still need the UV light to kill the coliform bacteria?

Thanks,
Doug

You did not specify…. have you had the water tested recently?

 

[hosspuller]

Just a Thought... I have good well water tastewise. A little acid but otherwise good. I installed a kitchen sink reverse osmosis tank & tap. I decided to use its output for the ice maker in the refrigerator. A simple tee in the line to the sink tap

Makes the best ice, I ever tasted from a home refrigerator.

 

[EarPlug]

Rotten Egg Smell From Water Heater: What It is & How To Fix It

Shower smell like rotten eggs? Follow along as we explain exactly how it’s caused, and what you can do to fix it, in Austin.

www.stansac.com

 

[LouNY]

The peroxide systems seem to work very well. When we had a bad well at the farm a peroxide injector was added to the pump line it ran when the pump did. It took a while to get it dialed in good then it worked very well. The cows actually seemed to prefer that treated water to the other waterers on a different well.

 

[ponytug]

The stink is hydrogen sulfide from the sulfur (sulfates) in your water that gets worse when the oxygen in the water is depleted, typically by microbes, but also by heating in a hot water heater. Iron will give you stains that range from yellow to red to black.

Both will be reduced if you have a way to inject an oxidizers (air/oxygen or ozone, chlorine, peroxide, or permangante) into the water. There are water softener like units that inject air, and allow enough contact time to precipitate the iron in the unit, and then backwash out the rust periodically. Your water softener will have a longer life if you have a an ozone, peroxide, or permanganate pretreatment, but in any case your salt should be either "Iron-out" salt, or have some added citric acid to get the iron off of your softener resin so it does not lose effectiveness.

I would start by getting your well water analyzed first, so you have data to work with to size your equipment.

We pump our water into holding tanks to let the oxygen in the air time to react and precipitate the iron. It is pretty low maintenance, if you have a suitable site.

If it were me, I would go with one of the iron out filtration units, though I might try to run it on ozone to ensure that as much as possible sulfur and iron are removed.

All the best,

Peter

 

[CADplans]

The guys that sell the powered anode rod for the hot water heater say that removing the anode rod from the hot water tank can eliminate the sulfur smell.

I would imagine that the rod has to be the source of the smell,,, for it to help.

My sister had perfect well water,, then, because of a road change, they drilled a new well

AND,,,,,,,,,,

THEY drilled right into a peat bog!! She had the worse sulfur smell water you can imagine,,

I am positive it was a peat bog, they dug a pond nearby and EVERY dredge bucket full was pure peat moss,,,

 

[jyoutz]

The guys that sell the powered anode rod for the hot water heater say that removing the anode rod from the hot water tank can eliminate the sulfur smell.

I would imagine that the rod has to be the source of the smell,,, for it to help.

My sister had perfect well water,, then, because of a road change, they drilled a new well

AND,,,,,,,,,,

THEY drilled right into a peat bog!! She had the worse sulfur smell water you can imagine,,

I am positive it was a peat bog, they dug a pond nearby and EVERY dredge bucket full was pure peat moss,,,

Sounds like a business opportunity.

 

[CADplans]

Sounds like a business opportunity.

She tried to sell the peat,, no one would pay her asking price,,,

 

[CliffordK]

Mom has heavy iron in her water. The water filter has an air injection system and periodic back flush. No chemicals to add (other than air). It works very well.

Also, talk to the neighbors and see what their water is like. None of the neighbors around my parents had iron problems. The well was pretty shallow. Hitting water around 20 feet, and down a bit more for added depth. Some casing. Anyway, they left the very rusty well behind the house for barn water, and drilled a second well in front of the house that had much less iron (but wasn't iron free, thus the filter).

 

[oosik]

I have a spring that supplies water to the house. I get "late summer" smells. I initially thought of some form of treatment. But with early fall - the fresh, clean water returns. It's been this way for the 42 years that I've used the spring.

I've had this water tested. Bacterially it's fine. During the late summer it's high in iron and associated odors.

For a month or so of "country water" I'm not about to add the complexities of high technology.

I put a large pitcher of water in the frige and after a day - all the odors are gone. This is only required during the month or so in the late summer.

Besides - the little green frogs that are resident in the spring don't seem to mind these late summer smells at all.

 

[D&D]

The stink is hydrogen sulfide from the sulfur (sulfates) in your water that gets worse when the oxygen in the water is depleted, typically by microbes, but also by heating in a hot water heater. Iron will give you stains that range from yellow to red to black.

Both will be reduced if you have a way to inject an oxidizers (air/oxygen or ozone, chlorine, peroxide, or permangante) into the water. There are water softener like units that inject air, and allow enough contact time to precipitate the iron in the unit, and then backwash out the rust periodically. Your water softener will have a longer life if you have a an ozone, peroxide, or permanganate pretreatment, but in any case your salt should be either "Iron-out" salt, or have some added citric acid to get the iron off of your softener resin so it does not lose effectiveness.

I would start by getting your well water analyzed first, so you have data to work with to size your equipment.

We pump our water into holding tanks to let the oxygen in the air time to react and precipitate the iron. It is pretty low maintenance, if you have a suitable site.

If it were me, I would go with one of the iron out filtration units, though I might try to run it on ozone to ensure that as much as possible sulfur and iron are removed.

All the best,

Peter

Water treatment is the “snake oil” for today’s times. Find a lab that can test for IRB content in the water. Then see if peroxide or chlorine will remove the contaminants.

 

[5030]

Been using H202 for years now. I buy mine in 15 gallon carboys of 35% and reduce it down to around 10% with the addition of distilled water and use a 'Pulsa-Feeder' positive displacement injection pump to inject the solution into the raw water at the bladder tank, then it goes through a Cuno industrial filter housing with a 10 micron filter cartridge inside, By the time it gets to the filter, the H202 has precipitated out the sulfur dioxide and turned it into a solid which the filter strips out.

Nice thing about H202 is it kills any and all bacteria present in the well water. Had my water tested many times by the county and it always comes back negative for bacteria content.

I also control the injection rate with a Dayton 6X602N timed delay switch that I can adjust for injection pump on cycle time that activates when the well pump is energized.

Your mileage may be different than mine but what I use works for me and has for at least 15 years now.

 

[D&D]

Most county (state) do not test for water quality but only test To “safe” drinking water standards. Typically looking for unacceptable levels of e.coli, coliforms, lead, nitrates and pH.
To really find out what may be “wrong” with water, you need a decent microbiology lab. Once the problem is properly diagnosed, a cure can be found.