Peroxide or Chlorine for well water treatment?

[Dougryan]

Hi,
My well water has sulfur and iron... it also has some hardness.
The current water treatment system (just moved into this house 2 months ago) includes three particle filters (10 microns), a water softener, and a UV light to kill bacteria.
Even with all of that, I still have discolored toilet bowls, yellowish ice cubes, and a sulfur smell that comes and goes. I just changed two of the three filters and that helped, but not much.

Looking into a new system and while chlorine injection has been around for a long time, it seems that peroxide injection is the latest and greatest.
Any experience you'll care to share?
From what I've learned (two quotes) it seems that the peroxide system is less expensive to buy and maintain.
Due to that, I'm leaning toward peroxide.

If I go with peroxide, do I still need the UV light to kill the coliform bacteria?

Thanks,
Doug

 

[Brianczaw]

I had these issues too. We added a whole house “iron zapper” backwash system and it got rid of the odors and colors. Also, try to determine if all water smells or just hot water?? We swapped out to a stainless steel hot water heater and all our issues went away,

 

[lilranch2001]

Hi,
My well water has sulfur and iron... it also has some hardness.
The current water treatment system (just moved into this house 2 months ago) includes three particle filters (10 microns), a water softener, and a UV light to kill bacteria.
Even with all of that, I still have discolored toilet bowls, yellowish ice cubes, and a sulfur smell that comes and goes. I just changed two of the three filters and that helped, but not much.

Looking into a new system and while chlorine injection has been around for a long time, it seems that peroxide injection is the latest and greatest.
Any experience you'll care to share?
From what I've learned (two quotes) it seems that the peroxide system is less expensive to buy and maintain.
Due to that, I'm leaning toward peroxide.

If I go with peroxide, do I still need the UV light to kill the coliform bacteria?

Thanks,
Doug

You did not specify…. have you had the water tested recently?

 

[hosspuller]

Just a Thought... I have good well water tastewise. A little acid but otherwise good. I installed a kitchen sink reverse osmosis tank & tap. I decided to use its output for the ice maker in the refrigerator. A simple tee in the line to the sink tap

Makes the best ice, I ever tasted from a home refrigerator.

 

[EarPlug]

Rotten Egg Smell From Water Heater: What It is & How To Fix It

Shower smell like rotten eggs? Follow along as we explain exactly how it’s caused, and what you can do to fix it, in Austin.

www.stansac.com

 

[LouNY]

The peroxide systems seem to work very well. When we had a bad well at the farm a peroxide injector was added to the pump line it ran when the pump did. It took a while to get it dialed in good then it worked very well. The cows actually seemed to prefer that treated water to the other waterers on a different well.

 

[ponytug]

The stink is hydrogen sulfide from the sulfur (sulfates) in your water that gets worse when the oxygen in the water is depleted, typically by microbes, but also by heating in a hot water heater. Iron will give you stains that range from yellow to red to black.

Both will be reduced if you have a way to inject an oxidizers (air/oxygen or ozone, chlorine, peroxide, or permangante) into the water. There are water softener like units that inject air, and allow enough contact time to precipitate the iron in the unit, and then backwash out the rust periodically. Your water softener will have a longer life if you have a an ozone, peroxide, or permanganate pretreatment, but in any case your salt should be either "Iron-out" salt, or have some added citric acid to get the iron off of your softener resin so it does not lose effectiveness.

I would start by getting your well water analyzed first, so you have data to work with to size your equipment.

We pump our water into holding tanks to let the oxygen in the air time to react and precipitate the iron. It is pretty low maintenance, if you have a suitable site.

If it were me, I would go with one of the iron out filtration units, though I might try to run it on ozone to ensure that as much as possible sulfur and iron are removed.

All the best,

Peter

 

[CADplans]

The guys that sell the powered anode rod for the hot water heater say that removing the anode rod from the hot water tank can eliminate the sulfur smell.

I would imagine that the rod has to be the source of the smell,,, for it to help.

My sister had perfect well water,, then, because of a road change, they drilled a new well

AND,,,,,,,,,,

THEY drilled right into a peat bog!! She had the worse sulfur smell water you can imagine,,

I am positive it was a peat bog, they dug a pond nearby and EVERY dredge bucket full was pure peat moss,,,

 

[jyoutz]

The guys that sell the powered anode rod for the hot water heater say that removing the anode rod from the hot water tank can eliminate the sulfur smell.

I would imagine that the rod has to be the source of the smell,,, for it to help.

My sister had perfect well water,, then, because of a road change, they drilled a new well

AND,,,,,,,,,,

THEY drilled right into a peat bog!! She had the worse sulfur smell water you can imagine,,

I am positive it was a peat bog, they dug a pond nearby and EVERY dredge bucket full was pure peat moss,,,

Sounds like a business opportunity.

 

[CADplans]

Sounds like a business opportunity.

She tried to sell the peat,, no one would pay her asking price,,,