Water Quality | My tap water Smells Bad. What can I do?

Water Smells Bad. What can I do?

You turn on your tap or your shower and soon you smell of rotten eggs.  Usually, water is clear and odorless. What can you do when the tap water has color and smells bad?

What causes the water to smell bad?

Chlorine and hydrogen sulfide are two chemicals that cause water to give bad odor. How to identify where bad-smelling water is coming from – and how to fix it.

Water from municipal water facility (city water) - most likely cause of your water smell is coming from something inside your home. City water boards treat water with disinfectants like chlorine or chloramine to water to kill germs before they reach home pipes. 

Common causes of odors with bad-smelling municipal water:

CHLORINATION: Low levels of chlorine usually go unnoticed, but higher levels may cause an odor. Some people are more sensitive to chlorine than others. 

WATER HEATERS: If the odor is present in your home’s hot water, the source may be a magnesium rod in your water heater tank. These rods are meant to prevent corrosion, but it’s possible for a chemical reaction to turn water’s natural sulfates to hydrogen sulfide. 

WELL WATER: A rotten-egg smell is a common issue in well water. In addition to causes like water heaters or sulfur bacteria in pipes, well water can also produce an odor if your well is drilled in shale or sandstone, or near coal or oil fields

How to fix bad smelling water?

Recommended water filters to reduce odor.

There are water treatment solutions available in two categories: whole-home products that treat your water as it enters your home or single tap products that treat your water where you use. 

It is increasingly becoming essential to filter water we consume. The best water filtration systems that reduce odors in your drinking water by up to 98% are based on Reverse Osmosis [RO] technology. These systems also reduce or eliminate the majority of contaminants like microscopic level compounds, bacteria, viruses, chlorine, lead, and microorganisms. These are available as counter top or under the sink models. The filtered water is ideal for drinking and cooking.

Some owners believe that a RO based water purifier is expensive to maintain. However with proper monitoring of the system it need not be expensive. The TDSBot makes your RO System smart. It monitors water quality in real time, alert you for changes in quality, gives predictive maintenance alerts and most important it lets you know when to change filters based on water quality and volume of water filtered.