I just moved into this new house one year ago. I have noticed a musty smell in the hot water. I've never noticed it in the cold water. The water comes from one of several wells which are shared by several lots in the subdivision. There are only 4 lots occupied in the subdivision, so asking others probably wouldn't help as they might even be on a different well. And the smell is so minute, I'd bet most people wouldn't even notice. BTW the water heater is a propane fired, direct through the wall vent (PVC) unit. Should I put in a filter? Or, any suggestions???? Thanks.
Water heaters are multiplying grounds for nasty things (which is why one should never ingest hot water).
If you use only a small amount, try draining the water heater to fill it with fresh. Find some way to inject a spoonfull of bleach into the newly-filled tank.
Good point, but if you don't ingest any of the water from the heater, you should be (mostly) okay with a lower temperature. Meanwhile, a lower temperature will reduce your fuel bill and, more importantly, save the earth from natural resource depletion, global warming, and other assorted ills.
I manage the wells/water system for what sounds like a very similar situation - we have 28 lots drawing from 8 wells.
The first thing you need to do is find the person/company that manages your well. What you didn't mention, but is highly likely with multiple houses drawing from a common well is the storage tank. Depending on the design of the water system, it's very likely that the storage tank is vented to the atmosphere. If not treated regularly, the storage tank will develop algae over time. While still drinkable, this leads to water with a musty odor, especially when heated. The appropriate amount of chlorine will knock out the algae and take care of the problem.
When you find the manager of the well, you can ask when they lasted tested the water for contaminates. We do annual testing for nitrates/nitrites and Total Coliform/eColi. The nitrate/nitrite testing catches any unwanted runoff from the surface contaminating the well water. Total Coliform is harmless, but if it's present, is an indicator that other bad things may be getting in the water (ie septic runoff).
If your funds are unlimited, there's lots of other tests you can buy, but these are relatively inexpensive and cover the most common well problems.
The extra cost of KEEPING water at 170 instead of 140 is so small as to be almost immaterial with today's well-insulated tanks.As for injesting - legionella aerosols very well in steem - so don't take a shower if the water heater is at 140.
Here are the results of my testing. The smell is only from one faucet, a bathroom vanity on a cultured marble base. I went to the other bathroom with the same sink and faucet, drew out hot water, let is run down the drain and no smell. We use this vanity very little. Went back to the original smelly one, and drew out a glass of hot water, took it out of the room and smelled it .... no smell. As someone mentioned, it is the drain ... I feel stupid for not seeing (aaaah, smelling?) it. I removed the pop up stopper and it was grubby, plus below it was pretty grubby also. I will clean it with a bottle brush and some bleach spray. That said, I will check with the Home Owners' Association on well testing. But, right now, as there are only 4 lots occupied, and one is the developer. The developer and his dad, is pretty much the association for now.
Water heaters have a sacrificial anode inside to reduce electolysis when dissimilar pipe fittings are used. This can deteriorate and cause a sulphur-like smell and taste in the water. Iron reducing bacteria can do this as well. My suggestion would be to replace the water heater, if the one you have is old, or you suspect that it's the anode. Chlorination can kill the iron reducing bacteria,
ITYM 120F, 140F hasn't been the recommended setting for decades (although there are good arguments why it should be so; legionnaire's disease combined with the prevalence of mixing valves being two. The main argument *against* that I can think of would be the increased delta-t between the inside of the tank and the air around it, but that can be mitigated by better insulation.)
the hotter the heaters output temperature the greater the scalding risk., and higher costs to keep the hot water hot, plus my personal opinion is that the hotter the bwater the shorter the heaters life.....
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