Chemical smell in the water

[ticki2]

I had a very similar problem when I first got my AS , had not been used for a while . Did the sanitizing and several full flushes and it was still there , mostly in the hot water . I think there is probably a reaction between the old alum water heater and old copper lines and the clorox . After using it for a season it was mostly gone . Then I read about using white vinegar . After cleaning and flushing put in a gallon of white vinegar ,fill the tank , run some through the pipes and water heater , let sit for a few hours or overnight . Empty , fill with fresh water , and the odor was gone . Hope this works for you.

[coopandmar]

Does your water supply have a sulfur like smell? Probably more noticeable on the hot water side.

You may have sulfur bacteria in your well. These are not pathogens but are an ancient bacteria that reduces sulphur to get energy. ( There are iron bacteria as well!)

You may have infected your AS tank with some sulfur bacteria. If there was a food source for them or if your well has other material such as high nitrates, you could get some growth.

The Chlorine treatment should be addequate. If you pull your tank and observe any dark areas that could be the remnants of a colony. Very hot water will often get most of it out, though it doesn't seem to matter if you do nothing but keep up the regular system disinfections.

It is possible that you may have to disinfect your water supply sytem a bit more than in the past. If you have taken the advice to flush, disinfect then flush some more that system should be reasonably clean. If you added disinfection to your current supply and smell sulfur it may just be from the source tank. Normal disinfection will take care of these minor pests.

Yes, we most definitely have a sulfur smell in our water at home. Last night we added baking soda to the tank and the chemical smell was still very present. We plan to drain the tanks tonight, add the bleach, flush it, and see what we get. We'll be heading south on Thursday and will hook up to a city water supply so that will be a good test to see if the smell goes away. As for pulling the tank, can you do that? Is that something that can be replaced? I suppose anything can be replaced on these, but I wouldn't have a clue as to how to pull it out.

[hampstead38]

Part of my day job is running a municipal water system (city administrator). The chlorine content of municpal water is meant to provide a reasonable level of disinfection at the treatment plant(s). As water remains in storage or in the water mains, the chlorine breaks down. When new water mains are built, higher concentrations of chlorine are used for disinfection (think of a homeowner "shocking" a pool with heavy dosing of chlorine at the start of the summer). Simply flushing an RV system with public (chlorinated) water will not have the same effect as adding higher levels of chlorine to disinfect the RV water system.

Chemical contamination is different than organic contamination. Disinfecting your system won't help the smell or taste if the problem is not organic in nature. Water testing by a reputable lab can tell you if the water meets the MCL requirements for safe drinking water. In some cases, a bad smell is unpleasant but not harmful. Of course, who really wants to drink water that smells bad? If you have water tested, I suggest testing the source water along with the post-storage RV water.

On this note, activated carbon filtration is not terribly expensive and I consider it necessary "on the road." There are many places where you can fill with "raw" (untreated) water. AC filtration is not perfect, but it does provide some benefits.

Back to your issue, if the water going into the RV is high quality and the chemical smell is occuring... you have a great advantage. There are a limited number of places the smell/taste problem can occur. The key to troubleshooting is to systematically eliminate possibilities. Good luck.

[coopandmar]

Well, we used our tank saver wand and cleaned out the water heater, then ran baking soda through the tank and lines and the smell actually was a lot better. Amazing! The water heater hadn't been cleaned in at least 20 years and I seriously doubt the person who owned it before that did it either. We shocked the system yesterday and the smell is all but gone. Thanks to everyone for your advice! Now we move on to polishing...replacing a broken jack...curtains...fixing the shower...