How to get rid of rotten egg smell in well water
Sulfur odors in well water are typically caused by hydrogen sulfide gas or sulfur-reducing bacteria. While temporary fixes like chlorine shock treatments offer brief relief, permanent resolution usually requires installing specialized filtration equipment like an aeration system or iron filter.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1Installing an under-sink carbon filter for drinking and brushing teethDid this help you?
- 2Shocking the shared well with bleachDid this help you?
- 3Installing a whole-house water filtration system with a softener and green sand filterDid this help you?
- 4Replacing the anode rod in the water heaterDid this help you?
- 5performing repeated shock chlorination with bleach or pool shockDid this help you?
- 6hiring a professional well repair businessDid this help you?
- 7installing new tank equipment and pipingDid this help you?
- 8planning to send in a mail-in water test sampleDid this help you?
- 9flushed the tankDid this help you?
- 10ran chlorine throughDid this help you?
- 11installed a new anode rodDid this help you?
- 12turned the temperature way upDid this help you?
- 13sterilizing the water heater every few weeks by turning the heat upDid this help you?
- 14installing a filter to remove the sulfurDid this help you?
- 15changing the anode rod to a different materialDid this help you?
- 16calling a filteration workerDid this help you?
- 17getting the water tested by a labDid this help you?
- 18installing a water filtration systemDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“My wife and I just purchased our first home and we are battling stinky and dirty(looking) well water. (Yellow bath water, rotten egg smell)”source ↗
“So, about 1000$ down and still no improvement over the original state of the water. (Barring the absence of the orange sludge... Disgusting)”source ↗
“Private well water in new home is yellow and smells of rotten eggs. Bleach shock and hch chlorine shock yielded great but extremely temporary results.”source ↗
“The water smells horrible, both hot and cold. I have ran it for an hour to try to get the smell out but it hasn’t improved. It’s worse than just rotten eggs I wouldn’t even use it to brush my teeth.”source ↗
“My question is is there anything I can do to fix it? I don’t know how to go about it since it’s a shared well and if there is anything I can do before involving the landlord.”source ↗
“But that shit is smelling like hell. Like it has a very irony? Smell. It smells as if someone shoved iron in it and then left it there.”source ↗
“So now I'm scared to get any water to bath or even shit 😭😭 im scared of I'll get typhoid”source ↗
“God knows that was in those pipes and my house people are stupid for not getting those pipes cleaned.”source ↗
“I moved into a rental recently only to find out that the water smelled like rancid, like sulfur and iron only worse.”source ↗
“We have been putting up with it for a few months until last week the water started to run gray with black grime.”source ↗
“We were at our wit's end because of how bad the water was to shower in especially.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 2How to stop sand from clogging a well water system
- 3Why does only the hot water smell like sulfur after moving in?
- 4Why is my tap water suddenly rusty and full of sediment?
- 37Why does flushing one toilet pull water out of another?
- 2Why won't any plumbers take my water health issue case?
- 27Water pooling around sprinkler head