User Panel
User Panel
User Panel
|
Posted: 7/20/2008 11:16:32 PM EDT
....besides buying water for ridiculous prices.
Well, we made our move. Other than the water and the dialup, it's awesome. There is nothing I can do about the dialup but can you make well water not taste so bad or stink so bad? We have a softener bu have yet to figure out when or how to use it. Would a Pur filter thing on the faucet help make the water not taste metallic? Will the water softener make it palatable and non stinky?? What can I do? Help me arfcom, you're my only hope! 
|
|
|
|
Posted: 7/20/2008 11:18:00 PM EDT
[#1]
Let me get this straight. You are drinking straight well water.
 
|
|
|
|
Posted: 7/20/2008 11:19:43 PM EDT
[#2]
It shouldn't stink
 Are you sure the people that lived there before didn't get forclosed on and poison the supply? I have heard that has been happening lately. |
|
|
|
Posted: 7/20/2008 11:19:56 PM EDT
[#3]
Get a reverse osmosis setup for your water.
|
|
|
|
Posted: 7/20/2008 11:20:33 PM EDT
[#4]
Sulfery?
Go deeper. RO would probably be cheaper though. |
|
|
|
Posted: 7/20/2008 11:21:24 PM EDT
[#5]
Consult a professional water treatment provider. Salt types may not deal well with iron which sounds like your problem.
Get an under-sink RO unit for drinking and cooking water. The Pur systems can help but not enough. |
|
|
|
Posted: 7/20/2008 11:25:25 PM EDT
[#6]
What does this mean? What's wrong with well water? |
|
|
|
|
Posted: 7/20/2008 11:28:13 PM EDT
[#7]
#1 best reply. Go forth and seek the tastful waters that only man can make. |
|
|
|
|
Posted: 7/20/2008 11:28:40 PM EDT
[#8]
We drink lake water down here or stream or creek,taste fine to me.Drink up man.
|
|
|
|
Posted: 7/20/2008 11:32:52 PM EDT
[#9]
Let the poor SOB live in his own world. No need to say anything other than, He's a Kansas Ass City Boy. |
||
|
|
|
Posted: 7/20/2008 11:36:45 PM EDT
[#10]
Yeah, just don't worry about those pesky little bugs in it that make you shit for three weeks.
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: 7/20/2008 11:37:02 PM EDT
[#11]
I know what you mean.
 When I lived in Muskegon , our well was horrid (so was our neighbors) My skin still has scars from the rashes we got. Too much iron and sulfer. We got a Culligan system and it was like bottled water.....and no more itchy skin  You can get test kits from the Menards and sometimes your town office. It will tell you what you need to get rid of and go from there. |
|
|
|
Posted: 7/20/2008 11:43:19 PM EDT
[#12]
Get a water pro out there, and look into Hughes for sat internet.
|
|
|
|
Posted: 7/20/2008 11:55:11 PM EDT
[#13]
ETA because of Greenhorn's post below. Thanks, GH!
Okay, here's the lowdown (my PERSONAL experience) on sulfery-smelling water: The odor is NOT from mineral sulphur. It is from This is especially prevalent in the kinds of well systems that have a pressure tank*. The well pump, pumping water out of the ground, pumps it into a big tank. The pressure is created by a big rubber donut inside the tank; this donut is sealed, there's no way to put more air into it. The donut collapses under pressure, but remember, being sealed, it is also creating pressure on the water inside the tank. So when the well pump turns off, the donut is still creating pressure. The pressure tank is a natural settling ground for the kind of stuff that collects & rots. So you get the sulphery smell. Google "smelly water sulphur odor" or something like that; I did so before I worked on my brother's house, and it helped a lot. (My brother had just bought a house and had asked me to do something about the water.) So, what to do? Rotting material is very susceptible to common chemicals, such as chlorine. My brother's house has 3 water filters on it; I simply took the lid off of each filter, put a half cup of pool chlorine in each one, then put the lid back on and let the water into it, then let the water go through the house pipes. Viola (prounounced: Wah Lah)! No more skunky odor! I also got some chlorine into his pressure tank by turning off the water, unscrewing a water line that supplied the tank, and letting some of the chlorinated water from the filters enter the tank. This was over 2 years ago, and his water is still good! You MAY need to santiize your well, also. (Note that I didn't say "your well, as well.") There are approved chemicals for doing this; the EPA and other guys don't like you putting chlorine into Mother Earth. *Other culprits are hot water heaters, or possibly a water softener. ETA |
|
|
|
Posted: 7/21/2008 12:00:08 AM EDT
[#14]
Well water
 I cant survive without water from the local water plant. Well water
|
|
|
|
Posted: 7/21/2008 12:12:53 AM EDT
[#15]
Not all well water is bad. Here in Central Texas, we are blessed with a deep, carbonate aquifer (Edwards) that is perfect drinking water right from the ground. The aquifer is about 1200-1500 feet below the surface yet in areas, the pressure is great enough for artesian wells. The water level is very dynamic, ranging from 700 feet above sea level to under 635. Right now, it is about 667 feet.
The water is hard, about 120 ppm calcium carbonate. |
|
|
|
Posted: 7/21/2008 12:19:54 AM EDT
[#16]
You need a solution? I'm sure the wellwater has quite a strong solution of something.
|
|
|
|
Posted: 7/21/2008 12:22:15 AM EDT
[#17]
I need a less complicated way 
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: 7/21/2008 12:22:50 AM EDT
[#18]
Actually, it's probably hydrogen sulfide. Sulfur dioxide is reactive, and forms sulfuric acid when mixed with water. Hydrogen sulfide is a naturally-forming gas, and it had a very strong odor - one of the strongest odors in existence. |
|
|
|
|
Posted: 7/21/2008 12:28:00 AM EDT
[#19]
BTW... having moved to a rural area, the water in mysubdivision tastes like hell. I regularly buy filtered water. The Walgreens nearest to me provides it for $1.00/5 gallons... cheapest I have seen it anywhere in NM. I have my own 5 gallon buckets.
|
|
|
|
Posted: 7/21/2008 12:53:21 AM EDT
[#20]
Pardon the stupid question, but I am brand new to all of this and a little overwhelmed. How the hell do I find these doohickeys to pour the whatnot into? Sorry, like I said I am a city boy finally living my dream and on a steep learning curve. |
|
|
|
|
Posted: 7/21/2008 1:06:07 AM EDT
[#21]
just get a RO system and all will be fine. I used to work at a facility with 500+ employees and kept maintenance on the 3 RO systems there. they work great.
without the systems the well water was totally nasty and smelled of sulfur |
|
|
|
Posted: 7/21/2008 1:11:33 AM EDT
[#22]
How much does one cost?
|
|
|
|
Posted: 7/21/2008 1:29:35 AM EDT
[#23]
|
|
|
|
Posted: 7/21/2008 1:47:24 AM EDT
[#24]
It's interesting how many people like to sound smart by dropping this term. And ironic, how many of those then don't spell it correctly. |
|
|
|
|
Posted: 7/21/2008 2:47:19 AM EDT
[#25]
First things first.
Have your water tested, to find out exactly what you're dealing with and what needs to be addressed. From there, you can have an intelligent discussion about what type of system you might need. We had a two-stage system in our house. The problem with our well was excessive iron in the water. We had a large birm tank, and then we also had the standard water softening system and our water was fantastic. If you have kids, you may want to get them on fluoride tablets. We gave them to our kids while we were living in a well house. Fluoride aids proper development of tooth enamel. |
|
|
|
Posted: 7/21/2008 2:57:22 AM EDT
[#26]
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: 7/21/2008 3:09:22 AM EDT
[#27]
testing.
That is step one. Ours had a bacteria last year, but it was because the power had been off. Couple of treatments fixed it. Our water tastes great, but, then again we're few miles South of you. |
|
|
|
Posted: 7/21/2008 3:15:48 AM EDT
[#28]
But...that sulphur smell keeps the mosquitos off you!
|
|
|
|
Posted: 7/21/2008 3:15:51 AM EDT
[#29]
We had well water when i was a kid.For drinking we would leave a jug in the frigde overnite and the sulfur smell would go away.
|
|
|
|
Posted: 7/21/2008 3:25:11 AM EDT
[#30]
i have a municipal water line come into my house but i'm not tied into it. i have a well and there's no filter or treatment to it. what you drink is just how it comes out of the ground! been here 13 yrs and it's the best water around. when i was a teenager and bailing hay on local farms to me there was nothing better than unloading the wagon and going in the barn and drinkin outa the tap, that ice cold sulpher water was AWESOME! yea it reaked but man it was ice cold and so good goin down. the guy who used to live here for like 30 yrs told me that when he moved two houses down the water was so bad he had to use bottled water for drinking but that my house had the best water he'd ever had. dunno what the explanation would be. i just don't like the idea of having to drink public water that i have to pay for when my well is great as is and has NEVER gone dry in some really hot dry summers here. with public water you're trusting some public servant who may add too much or too little chemicals or some wack job who just may want to add a little poison into the system. nope i'll take my well thank you!
|
|
|
|
Posted: 7/21/2008 4:11:18 AM EDT
[#31]
I grew up on well water right out of the ground. Well water will taste different than municipal water. Not in a bad way though. People who are used to well water think city water tastes funny. You will get used to the taste and it will be like normal water.
However, it sounds like you've got something else going on there. It shouldn't stink. There are places that do have a high sulphur content and the water stinks, but yeah. I would get your water tested. |
|
|
|
Posted: 7/21/2008 4:22:51 AM EDT
[#32]
Hugh: Have a water expert come out to your house. Get that water softener up and running too. Use the kind of salt that reduces iron in your pipes.
Best of luck to you! I'm on a well also and the water occasionally has an odor to it, but for drinking we use filtered water (Pur type, we installed a separate faucet in the kitchen for drinking water). |
|
|
|
Posted: 7/21/2008 4:26:05 AM EDT
[#33]
Hugh,
When you bought the house the county health department has to do a test on the well. If you are renting, hit the county health department and buy a test kit, follow the directions, and then you will know exactly what is in your well. The culligan guys come out and do a basic test that missed choliform and other icky bugs. The discharge from water softners is not good for your septic system. Reverse osmosis systems are best, but pricey. The inline filters are good to have to keep sediment out of your pressure tank, and water heater. Your well might be an old shallow well, and because of the Limestone, and iron in Michigan, punching the well deeper might get you away from the stinky stuff. Also check your countys website, click on maps, and then Wells. All the wells in the county will be listed, and what depth they are at, when punched etc. Check and see when yours was done in comparison to neighbors with newer houses. Here in this corner of the state, unless you are down 100'+ you're gonna have some stinky water. My Irrigation well is down 180' and is good sweet water. The old one is at 60' and stinks like Florida marsh Gas!  Good luck to ya! S-28 |
|
|
|
Posted: 7/21/2008 4:56:49 AM EDT
[#34]
Total hardness is much higher though. It is around 195+/-. I have done samples for some wells here around Canyon Lake that were double and even triple at certain times of year. |
|
|
|
|
Posted: 7/21/2008 4:59:55 AM EDT
[#35]
I am no well expert, bu my well equipment pumps the water through a mister which allows the sulfur to be released. The only smell I get is through my sprinklers. The water in my tap smells and tastes better than city water.
|
|
|
|
Posted: 7/21/2008 5:03:40 AM EDT
[#36]
The hydrogen sulfide will gas off if you give it a chance. I have seen stand pipes that have a airation built into them that helps with this. Kieth, go down by our damn on Canyon Lake before the lake turns over and the smell will knock you off your feet. I know a lady that has a house on the Guadalupe near the damn. When the HS is gassing off it tarnish's all the silver in there house.
|
|
|
|
Posted: 7/21/2008 5:05:56 AM EDT
[#37]
I'd stack my well water up against any city water or fancy bottled water out there. Unfiltered, untreated, straight out of the ground well water. Depending on your area, ground water can range from pure spring water to nasty mineral laden or even polluted water barely suitable for lawn watering. |
|
|
|
|
Posted: 7/21/2008 5:16:08 AM EDT
[#38]
Satellite internet is the worst idea...ever. 
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: 7/21/2008 5:37:38 AM EDT
[#39]
We've got a huge aquifer about 80 feet deep below 2 layers of limestone. It's about 70 square miles. I have 2 natural springs and 3 drilled wells on my property that refresh at 20 gallons/minute.
It's as clean and pure as any spring or bottled water that you buy in the store. Not a single odor, and the only trace mineral residue is a slight amount of calcium. I love it, and will never have anything else. |
|
|
|
Posted: 7/21/2008 5:57:54 AM EDT
[#40]
you can also shock your well with unscented clorox. contact your sanitation office in the county court house. They should be able to help you with the proper amount to use and how to use it. there are also guides put out and printed by the red cross on how to purify water in times of flooding and well contamination by flood waters. I would not give up my well for all the bottled water in the world. municipal water is full of all sorts of comtaminates. many big cities are now recycling urine into the municipal water supply. google this and you will find this to be true. but of course this has been treated so that it is safe for human consumption.
|
|
|
|
Posted: 7/21/2008 6:38:44 AM EDT
[#41]
Consider yourself VERY blessed. I've had well water that actually tasted great... but most of the well water I've had doesn't taste good at all! |
|
|
|
|
Posted: 7/21/2008 6:47:56 AM EDT
[#42]
My well water is infinitely better than the city water.
Occasionally it will smell a little sulfury, particularly if no water has been run for an extended period. I refill my empty water bottles with it and nobody has yet noticed that I substituted well water for their bottled water. If they have, nobody has complained or mentioned it. Of course, all wells are not created equal. Did you have the well inspected at all?
Viola is the name of a nearby town. I have a bad habit of intentionally mis-spelling and mis-pronouncing voila because of it. 
|
||
|
|
|
Posted: 7/21/2008 6:59:01 AM EDT
[#43]
One of the first things I do at any house viewing is taste the water. My house well water is untreated,and tastes great,with just a bit of copper in it based on my tests.
If your well has bacterial issues-shock it with chlorine per instructions available online. Then run all of the taps/faucets in your house till you can smell chlorine coming from them. Shut them off at that point,and let the water sit in the chlorinated pipes and pressure tank for a period of time as instructed. Then you need to purge the chlorinated water from the system. If you're on a septic tank,try to vent most of the chlorinated water through your hose (water your lawn). That minimizes the effect on your septic tank's bacterial level. If necessary,you can always get treatments for your septic tank afterwards if it seems to fill quickly. |
|
|
|
Posted: 7/21/2008 7:03:53 AM EDT
[#44]
You can also tell between cities, Boston's water tastes like radish... |
|
|
|
|
Posted: 7/21/2008 7:14:03 AM EDT
[#45]
Call the Culligan man.
|
|
|
|
Posted: 7/21/2008 7:18:23 AM EDT
[#46]
We had the exact same problem, but it was compounded by our remote home site, plus living in a crap state. The shit in our water would corrode metal fittings and the organic stuff would build-up on the aerators to restrict flow. I think a lot of the contamination was being downstream from a lot of cow pastures (that’s right: cowshit!).
The problems were, we couldn’t get anyone out here to look at out situation: no well people, no water softener or RO companies, no plumbers (that might have shed some light on the problem). When buying the house we noticed a swampgas smell that neither the inspector (idiot state person #1) or the realtor (isp #2) knew what it was or what to do. We took a sample to the state college Ag board and were told not to drink or irrigate with it. At least, not too much. I was told to contact some state environmental resource board (isp#3) to report the results as soon as I “got the results!” When I did, they got indignant and said; “we don’t have anything to do with that.”  I never found a cost-effective whole house RO system, and knew that PUR filters are useless. Treating the system with bleach was a very temporary solution at best. Plus, the fact we live in a very drought ridden area, I saw ponds dry up with the fish being exposed on the bottom. I was just waiting to have the well run dry. I was looking strongly at water-carrying vehicles and maybe buying a lot in the nearby town to have water rights. Then gas prices shot up. It was pucker factor time. I found out by chance that a rural water company had a line about a mile away and petitioned them to get a water line. But a board (isp #4+) had to approve it and they weren’t doing so in my area because the rumor of a casino was coming in and they didn’t want that (against god’s word, or something). Finally, after two years of cajoling and ass kissing we got a line run in. Even now, some 6 months on, I smile when I run the water. In short, don’t buy a house with questionable water resources, and know what other options are available. Don’t rely on local officials and experts. And don’t move to SW Oklahoma! |
|
|
|
Posted: 7/21/2008 7:19:34 AM EDT
[#47]
I put in an iron filter that I got from This Guy
Best Money I spent, should have done it years ago. It works, and works well. -JTP |
|
|
|
Posted: 7/21/2008 7:21:15 AM EDT
[#48]
DO THIS. I have a well also. RO is the way to go. |
|
|
|
|
Posted: 7/21/2008 7:21:35 AM EDT
[#49]
You engineers..... Why do you guys insist on pissing off analytical chemists by reporting a measured cation (Ca2+) as its mineral formula??? The engineers do it here too....all the freaking time!!!! Here it is more important to NOT do that as we have both NaCl and Na2SO4 in the ore. Still, they want the number as NaCl instead of just Na+ which is what is actually measured.
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: 7/21/2008 7:22:45 AM EDT
[#50]
I do because when you get to the top of the hills out of our valley, you are lucky to even hit water at all. There's a little town about 5 miles from us that only pumps out liquified rotten egg juice. Everyone there has retention ponds. |
||
|
|
Win a FREE Membership!
Sign up for the ARFCOM weekly newsletter and be entered to win a free ARFCOM membership. One new winner* is announced every week!
You will receive an email every Friday morning featuring the latest chatter from the hottest topics, breaking news surrounding legislation, as well as exclusive deals only available to ARFCOM email subscribers.
AR15.COM is the world's largest firearm community and is a gathering place for firearm enthusiasts of all types.
From hunters and military members, to competition shooters and general firearm enthusiasts, we welcome anyone who values and respects the way of the firearm.
Subscribe to our monthly Newsletter to receive firearm news, product discounts from your favorite Industry Partners, and more.
Copyright © 1996-2024 AR15.COM LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Any use of this content without express written consent is prohibited.
AR15.Com reserves the right to overwrite or replace any affiliate, commercial, or monetizable links, posted by users, with our own.
