stinking water

milkman · Sep 6, 2002

i live in the country, only water source is two sixteen hundred gallon cisterns. every summer, the water gets a foul smell in the house. i've checked the cisterns and there is no smell there. i even cleaned and refilled with city water, the smell came back in a short time.
i've been told the anode rod in the water heater causes this, replaced the water heater with one that doesn't have a metal tank or anode rod.
i was then told that the heating elements act as an anode and that is what causes the smell.

i'm out of avenues to pursue, does anyone have a solution?

Ozarker · Sep 6, 2002

I would have a sample of the water as it comes out of the faucet tested.

LTEnterprises · Sep 6, 2002

maybe it's your stinking pump LOL luv ya dad !!

Mike_Dumond · Sep 6, 2002

Milkman, what kind of piping do you have running from the cistern to the house?? How old is it? Are you using gravity or pump. If pump, what style, (jet, piston?)? What kind of pressure tank you using? (Bladder type, or no bladder?) Is it just in the hot water, cold water or both? From all the faucets, or just one?

patrickg · Sep 6, 2002

Mike beat mem to all the really good questions, so here is a comment:

I had a stinking water problem in my RV and thought I was growing something in the water tank but it was clean. Eventually by process of ellimination I got to the water heater AND it WAS the sacrificial anode. Changed it out, put away the spare for next time and no recurrence. The odor would have to be experienced to be appreciated.

Galvanized pipe can, under certain circumstances, act like the water heater anode smell maker process.

Best of luck, I know how irritating it must be. Share your further attempts and results.

Patrick

milkman · Sep 9, 2002

using shallow well pump, new. tank is with bladder, new. pipe is black 160 psi plastic, new. the smell is definitely worse from the hot water taps, all of them. after a while, the cold water will smell also, but not as bad as the hot.
i think the same as Patrick, it has to do with the water heater, but as i posted earlier, the water heater is new and has no sacrificial rod (anode) i did have to replace one of the heating elements, my fault, drained the water heater and forgot to trip the breaker. the old one was pitted, as if it was eaten away like an anode rod would be.

Travelover · Sep 9, 2002

I had a similar problem and solved it permanently by taking out the anode from the water heater. Another thing that worked temporarily was treating the water heater with bleach. I did this by putting bleach in a capped pipe and attaching it to the drain valve on the bottom of the heater. Once you open the drain valve, the bleach intermixes with the heater water and kills the "stinking" bacteria.

milkman · Sep 22, 2002

sorry about the long intervals between posts, but i'm on the road all week and you know how the honey doos pile up. makes for low seat time and puter time.
does anyone know why this only happens to the water in the hot months. not noticeable in the cool and winter months.
i do believe that the smell is caused by the reaction of the minerals in the water with the few metal parts in the water system, i'd think someone would know of a fix.
I suppose the only fix would be plastic everything.

patrickg · Sep 22, 2002

Milkman (my favorite brand of powdered milk!)
Even all plastic isn't a perfect odor free environment in a couple of instances. When we first set up my moms new house about a year ago, my wife, who rivals the best beagle in sniffing, had complaints for a good while about the new plastic/chemical smell to the water. As best I could tell, it was the solvents in the glue. Of course this smell decayed exponentially until it went below her threshold and was no longer an item of interest. I quit detecting it a few days before her (I'm only superhuman).

If there is anything growing in the water it can make a smell, irrespective of the material of which the pipes are made.

Our most recent "SMELL" alert seems to be a "strange" venting practice. Condensate from the heatpump runs through a trap then to a drain pipe down to the "main drain" to the septic tank. On the downstream side of the trap there is a "T" with the straight through part vertical and the condensate coming in from the trap via a horizontal run into the "base" of the "T" (laying on its side). Lets count holes in the "T": 1. condensate from the trap, 2. vertical discharge to the main drain, 3. third part of the "T" OPEN to the atmosphere with no extension to it. Seems to me this is venting the main drain into the HVAC closet in the protrusion of the utility room into the kitchen portion of the great room. I'm certainly no plumber but it seems to me the unused (third outlet) of the "T" should be vented up and out of the house. Even stranger is that it usually has no detectable odor but every few months she gets a whiff. I smelled it once with my meager male olefactories.

By the way, Ozarker had the best suggestion, I think, have the smelly water tested. It is'nt too expensive and then you will know what you are dealing with which may be a good clue to how to fix it A N D it would be good to know about health and safety implications.

Patrick

heehaw · Sep 23, 2002

i have a whole house cannister filter,(installed after chlorinator, the sand filter and the water softener) and ususally put one of those carbon elements in the cannister, every 3-4 months or so...actually, when the water pressure gets low, i know its stopping up, so i replace it..this had gone on for over 10 years ....until the last 2 years....our water got really smelly, i chlorinated everything i could get chlorine to, but no change...i finally changed the carbon element, and the odor went away...3-4 months later, the same thing. the water pressure stayed fine, but the odor started again..i did this about 4 times and finally left the carbon element out, so far the water has been fine without the carbon filter, so i probably won't put it back in.
heehaw