Well water system with smelly hot water (water tank, tanks, price)

[digitalgpbandit]

Hi, my wife & I recently moved into a house in Orange County NY with a well water system which is pretty new to us. The previous owner was rarely at the house & didn't keep up on all the maintainace but theres only one issue we've had. There was an issue with the hot water having a sulfur smell to it which we knew about before purchasing the house. The cold water has no smell at all. We replaced the anode rod in the hot water heater with some kind of special aluminum one which Bradford White (the manufacturer of the water heater) said would get rid of the smell. It definatly needed a new anode rod the old one was eaten up pretty good. We then flushed it out and then let it sit with chlorox in it for 24 hrs as per recommendations from a "water expert". After I flushed the chlorox out we were good, no smell. Now about a month later the smell is back, although not as strong as before its definatly noticeable.

What else can we do without having to get a new water heater all together? I heard of using hydrogen peroxide insted of bleach is that a better option or is there something else I'm missing? Any help is greatly appreciated!

[Squirl]

I just buy a new 50 gal hot water heater at the big box stores for about $300 and expect to replace them every 6 years or so. I sell the old ones on craigslist for $75-100. It's made life easier. Of course I am assuming your well water has been tested and is clean and you use a water filter.

[Driller1]

I leave the anode out of mime........works just fine....no smell.

[K'ledgeBldr]

My understanding is the aluminum, zinc, and tin anodes are designed for iron rich water that produces the obnoxious smell.
And as Driller noted, some fore go the anode altogether to eliminate the odor- something to do with the heating process. If you do go this route I would imagine that flushing the tank would be a more than annual process.

[digitalgpbandit]

My understanding is to never go without the anode rod, doing that will rapidly deteriorate the water heater.


This is the sytem I have in my basement. I already have a chlorination tank with an injector pump. The water was tested when we had the house inspected and everything checked out good. The inspector said its just the nussience of the smell

[chet everett]

The experience of having "reactive" water from wells is pretty common. It is good that the aluminum anode worked for a while to reduce the odor. I would stick with trying to work with hot water side of things -- often the water heater manufacturers will recommend lab testing of the hot and cold water to recommend comparing the percentage of sulfur compounds dissolved. Best case they recommend a slightly different kind of anode. The manufacturer also may be able to recoomend phosphoric compounds that can reduce / counteract the sulfur compounds. Can be very cheap...

I also there are water treatment companies that will test the water and recommend appropriate treatments, problem is even a moderately priced water softener will need salt refills. If you decide to use additional kinds of water treatment you can end up having something that runs into the thousands of dollars.

Sometimes the best sources of information are those that are really aimed at industrial water treatment -- the knowledge you get is directly applicable to home use. Firms that use water as either an ingredient or a vital wash in making their goods will not waste money on ineffective add-ons.

[Driller1]

My hot water tank is 15 years +.........still in service.

[nybbler]

There are active (non-sacrificial) anodes which might work; they need to be plugged in though. And I'm not 100% sure they're not snake oil. First thing to do might be to check if you have another anode; some tanks have two, one in the anode spot and one inside the hot water outlet. If there's another one, remove it and re-sanitize the tank.