I've been following this thread, hoping to find a solution!
My problem seems similar to spacedcowgirl's:
Rotten-egg smell when I first turn on the cold water at the upstairs bathroom sink for several months. Goes away when I run the cold water for a few seconds. No previous problem (been here 11 years). No recent changes in plumbing or fixtures. No change after removing the sink aerator.
No problem elsewhere in the house except for the same smell at one outside faucet!
No smell from the hot water. No anode in the (plastic inner-jacketed) hot water heater. No smell in water from the water heater's drain valve.
No smell from the sink drain. No smell from the faucet fixture or from the flexible woven metal supply line (I removed them to check) but the smell is present when I first turn on the cold water at the under-sink valve.
I have a well. I have not been sick. I'm reluctant to have the water tested for fear of having my well condemned.
I have a water softener; haven't tried putting it on bypass.
What should I do??
Thank you in advance for any help!
This message has been edited. Last edited by: bluedog,
If you have the fear of the well being condemned. Why are you willing to put yourself and your family at risk if there is something wrong? Get the water tested. Perhaps there is something wrong. It may be something that could be wrong with other neighbors wells as well. If the water is bad enough to comdem the local health department will work something out to assist you in getting water into the house. It may be something that can be corrected with a simple filter.
Posts: 1047 | Location: New Jersey | Registered: 31 January 2006
I have the same problem-egg smell from the cold water only in the kitchen. I've cleaned the screen in the faucet. I had the water tested at the local Health Department and it doesn't have any bacteria problem. We are on a well and just built the house about 1.5 years ago. We never had the smell until about the last month. If you fill a glass of water the water in the glass smells horrible. I have not noticed it in any other water outlet. We have a whole house filter just after the well tank and a water softner. The only thing different is that I changed from the yellow bag of salt pellets to the green bag that helps with the rust, BUT the neighbor has the same issue and he is using yellow salt. I also changed to a carbon filter in the whole house filter, it seems to help for only about a week or so. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. The temporary get-around is to run a glass of hot water (and it doesn't even have to be hot-but it doesn't smell) and then add ice for non-smelly drinking water. Thanks.
We found the problem. There is a vent that needs to be unpluged under your sink. It stems from your septic tank, leaking the smell back into the house. Mom had a plumber clean vent in bathroom and kitchen and after a couple hours the smell went away. Hope this helps you too. it took us a year before someone found the answer. Jerri
Originally posted by Rangerrosie: I have the same problem-egg smell from the cold water only in the kitchen. I've cleaned the screen in the faucet. I had the water tested at the local Health Department and it doesn't have any bacteria problem. We are on a well and just built the house about 1.5 years ago. We never had the smell until about the last month. If you fill a glass of water the water in the glass smells horrible. I have not noticed it in any other water outlet. We have a whole house filter just after the well tank and a water softner. The only thing different is that I changed from the yellow bag of salt pellets to the green bag that helps with the rust, BUT the neighbor has the same issue and he is using yellow salt. I also changed to a carbon filter in the whole house filter, it seems to help for only about a week or so. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. The temporary get-around is to run a glass of hot water (and it doesn't even have to be hot-but it doesn't smell) and then add ice for non-smelly drinking water. Thanks.
What you have is a manganese problem. Manganese smells like rotten eggs. Check the house next door to see if he has it (if you all are on a public water system). If he doesn't have it then the problem is inside your house. I would suspect it involves a filter somewhere. Remove the filter/filters and flush your lines. Most likely the smell will be gone when you do that. There are several other problems that can cause bad odor but most likely Manganese is your problem.
Teesip The neighbor next door has the same problem but we are on private wells (in a subdivsion). I have changed the filter (a carbon filter) and it is okay for a week and starts up again. I hopeing for a more long term solution. Thanks for your reply
Originally posted by Jerri: We found the problem. There is a vent that needs to be unpluged under your sink. It stems from your septic tank, leaking the smell back into the house. Mom had a plumber clean vent in bathroom and kitchen and after a couple hours the smell went away. Hope this helps you too. it took us a year before someone found the answer. Jerri
Jerri Thank you for your reply. The odor is not coming out of the sink-it is coming from the faucet. If I pour a glass of water it smells in the glass. Did your sink smell from the drain? That is not the case here? It doesn't make sense to me how it could be coming from the septic system. Please explain if you can. Thanks.
I know it doesn't make sense, but it only took a couple hours after he unplugged this vent for the smell to go away. She has a septic and the vent I'm not sure where under the sink get plugged. It even has happen at work and they pour bleach down the drain and the smell goes away. They aren't on a well. Call around to some plummers and ask them where this vent is, tell them it smell like the septic and see if some one will come out and help you. Promise this really is your problem. Jerri
Rangerrosie, It's not the sink nor your faucet, but it smells like it. The vent that stems from the septic, sound dumn but it's true. And Mom had it for over a year, no one got sick. But a plumber clean out a vent under the sink and after two hours it went away. Mom can't tell me where the vent is but the guy used some kind of detector and he told her that vent needs to be unplugged after so many years. She lived there for 20 + years. The smell hasn't come back. And she had at lease 3 plumbers come out. Jerri
This sounds like a reasonable fix. Did the change work? Were you having trouble with odor from cold and hot or cold only? I have bad odor coming from a single cold tap on a dual vanity. None of the other taps have this - only cold water - we did remodel recently and it was only since the remodel that the tap began to have this foul odor.
quote:
Originally posted by KellyM: I know the answer to your problems. I installed 4 new faucets and all 4 had the odor problem. Never had it before. The problem is the plastic supply lines from the valve to the sink. There was a problem in manufacturing process the product contained to much sulfur, and causes the odor in about 3 to 4 weeks. Replace them with metal supplies and your problem will go away.
I'm having the same problem. House is on well water, has been delicious and smelled fine for the last 20 years, but when we replaced two bathroom sinks, those two sinks (and those 2 sinks only) started smelling like sulfur. It is the cold water only, and the water smells even if you take it out of the bathroom, so there is no possible way it could be the drain. The hot water smells fine, the sink smells fine when the cold water isn't running, and all the old faucets in the rest of the house smell fine, as do the outside hoses. One of the sinks has plastic tubing under the sink, but the other has metal, so there's no way it could be a specific batch of poorly manufactured hose. I've wondered if there's a brand of plumber's putty or caulk that smells like sulfur, but in that case, it should have affected the hot water too. So my question is: is there anything used in connecting hot water lines to a sink that is not used when connecting cold water lines? Or any differences in the manufacturing process / physical makeup of the faucet parts? I've installed a number of faucets, and can't recall seeing anything, but maybe one of you knows better? Incidentally, our faucets are Moen too, but it sounds like there are people with the same problem who have faucets from other companies, so I suspect it's not a brand problem.
Do you happen to have an R/O unit servicing that sink and have recently changed the filter? Crazy I know, but I experienced this once when I changed my filter (vegetable membrane) - it went away after two days though.Good Luck!
Posts: 34 | Location: NW New Jersey | Registered: 13 June 2007
