Water worse after draining hot water heater

tukka

We own a home with well water and for a little while we have been noticing a rotten egg odor. A few months ago we had a green sand filter installed to remove that (we already have a salt water softener, so now we have two systems).

The odor kept coming so after several service calls confirming the softener was working fine, we decided to flush the hot water heater (which is 4 years old).

After the first flush, we used our inline filter to dispense bleach into the hot water heater. The water seemed to smell better.

Not too long after we noticed our drippy shower head was leaving iron stains on the floor and our white dishes were stained brown/orange. I manually regenerated the green sand system and it is still bad.

The water smells a little fishy/metallic now, and the water is so brown orange it stains anything it comes in contact with. What happened?

gregzoll

You killed the filter by pouring Bleach through it.

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oh'mike

Remove the sacrificial anode rod inside of the water heater----your bleaching exposed fresh metal---which is now reacting with the Iron and sulfur in the water---

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Bob999

The problem is most likely the anode rod in the water heater and removing it will probably stop the smell--but it will also accelerate the demise of the water heater. Replacing the anode rode with one of a different compostion usually solves the probem. There are also powered anode rods.

See here:

http://www.waterheaterrescue.com/pag...r-heaters.html

tukka

Thank you... I had a feeling it was a reaction with the adnode rod. I'm trying to remove it but the bolt is giving us a hell of a time. We may remove it altogether even though we bought a replacement.

joecaption

Most of the time you have to use an air power impact gun to get them out.