Said It Here

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.

  1. 1
    Installing an under-sink carbon filter for drinking and brushing teeth
  2. 2
    Shocking the shared well with bleach
  3. 3
    Installing a whole-house water filtration system with a softener and green sand filter
  4. 4
    Replacing the anode rod in the water heater
  5. 5
    performing repeated shock chlorination with bleach or pool shock
  6. 6
    hiring a professional well repair business
  7. 7
    installing new tank equipment and piping
  8. 8
    planning to send in a mail-in water test sample

In their words

Unedited, most upvoted first, 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 ↗

Furyan9x · r/HomeImprovement · 2 upvotes

“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 ↗

Radiant_Rooster5176 · r/HomeImprovement

Where this came up

r/HomeImprovementhome improvementhome maintenanceplumbingwater quality

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