Over the past 6 months the water coming from the taps in our kitchen, powder room and bath have turned foul-smelling–rotten egg odor. The city water department here in Gin Harbor, WA has said that our flexible plastic connection tubes from the hard copper house plumbing to the taps themselves are the cause due to some sort of bacteria–one that is harmless, it just causes the water to stink. There is no odor at all in the shower where the water flows only through hard copper. They say this is exactly what happens: the plastic supports the bacteria due to surface microporosity, but the copper does not.
Has anyone ever heard of this and is there a solution other than replacing all the flexible plastic tubing with flex copper or stainless? Eliminating the plastic will require removing the kitchen faucet with pull down sprayer and replacing it with a less functional solid model, which I’d rather not do. From my perspective the city increasing the chlorine level to kill the pesky bacteria sounds like a better solution. Any thoughts?
Replies
Is it just the hot water that smells, or does cold water smell too?
If it's hot water only then likely the problem is in your water heater. In high iron areas (is their iron in your water?) there is a bacteria that sets itself up in water heaters and causes this smell. Also, the magnesium anode rods can cause the smell.
I'm skeptical of the plastic pipe explanation, but the fact that the odor isn't detected in your shower may support that.
Bacteria sometimes use iron or sulfur in their life cycle generating either rust or, as you've found out, hydrogen sulfide. Both problems result from bacterial entry into your well water system. If caught early it can be eliminated with anti-bacterial agents such as bleach. If the little sukers get established, then they can become a persistent problem that may, or may not, get resolved with time.
I had a persistent problem with iron bacteria in one of my wells and after getting some advice from a well driller, I was able to keep the problem in check by adding about a 1/2 cup of granular bleach(pool supply) directly to the well head once a month. I had a 5000 gal holding tank, direct feed from the well itself, before entry into the house which helps dissipate and dilute any "bleachy" odor or residue. However, 1/4 to 1/2 cup per month isn't much in when you consider the total volume of water involved. In the case of rotten egg smell, the bleach gets rid of both the odor and the bacteria that causes the problem. Sulfide gets oxidized to sulfate/sulfite, losing it's typical odor in the process. Addition of bleach in this fashion, whether to a pool or to well system, is referred to as "shocking" the system. Here's a ref:
http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/naturalresources/DD5941.html
It's actually the corrosion on the inside of the copper that is toxic to the bacteria and the inertness of the PEX that allows it to survive so switching to stainless would not solve the problem but copper would. If you have or can install a regular 9" cartridge filter where the city water enters the house you can turn the water off, drain the filter housing, fill it with Clorox or well-sanitizing chlorine tablets, turn the water back on and advance the water slowly in the pipes until you can smell Clorox at all the faucets, leave it alone all day long and sterilize the linings of the pipes that way. be sure to purge the chlorine out of the system before showering or doing laundry or making ice cubes. Scotch and Clorox on the rocks is a bad thing.
If it comes back I agree with swapping the Anode rod in the water heater tank with one designed to prevent the rotten egg smell, our plumbing supply stocks them. You need the mother of all wrenches and cheater bars to remove the old rod though I think it's a 1 1/8 socket. Get a helper when you do it. A lot of plumbers just pull the old rod, hack saw it off an inch from the plug and re-insert the rod-less plug. I hear that works some times. I don't remember the special rods being all that expensive though and if you're going to the grief of pulling out the old rod you may as well put in the right one.
m
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"You cannot work hard enough to make up for a sloppy estimate."
An electric impact wrench is good for removing the anode rod.
The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable. --John Kenneth Galbraith
If the problem were in his water heater, OP would have smelly water in the shower also.There was no mention of PEX by the OP. He said the problem was attributed to flexible plastic supply lines between angle stops and faucets.That would make your chlorine treatment easy. He could take off the flex lines periodically and soak them in Clorox.
BruceT
Sounds like you could replace those contaminated plastic supply lines with copper tubing, so the only plastic tube in the house would be the one on the kitchen sprayer spout.
We have a new Kohler goose neck type kitchen faucet with a swivel aerator/sprayer in the end - normally aerator mode; pull down for sprayer mode. Since the goose neck spout is pretty high, the sprayer nozzle reaches all parts of the double sink, so we don't need a pull-out sprayer.
Thanks for the ideas and the info. The smell is in both hot and cold. The city water comes from a number of wells scattered around town, and all have varying amounts of iron, manganese and sulfur, from relatively high to very low, depending on which well. The two wells that serve our neighborhood are low in sulfur and iron, but moderate in manganese.
Our water heater was put in when the house was built 12 years ago, and I'm thinking of replacing it before it fails, so I'll try to figure out how to put something in the system to add chlorine (bleach) for the occasional shock treatment.
thanks again to all, and if you have more thoughts please send them along.