SULFUR - After hydrogen peroxide system installed - HELP!

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S Fields

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Just found this forum and hoping some of you experts can help me.

The basics: Bought a mobile home in July 2011, no city water available, so we had well drilled. Immediately, we had very strong sulfur content 10+ ppm. The well driller installed a pressure tank and we ran a hose out of it and let it run several thousand gallons out after drilling. The sulfur content never got any better, so we had to go to plan B. We saved up and built a small, climate controlled, addition on to the back of the house to store our filtration system in. We went with a hydrogen peroxide injection system, with a catalyst carbon (tank) filter, and a water softener system.

After installation, we had sulfur free "clear" water for 2 days. Day 3 we started getting black sediment coming out of the faucets when we would turn them on for the first time in the morning, with a slight "rotten egg" odor. It would clear up after running it for a few minutes. Day 4, the smell was very strong, and the water was a continuous grey color. I went from 3 all the way to 10 on the Stenner pump with no improvement. I made sure it was injecting peroxide, and tried backwashing the system manually. After several hours just shut the water off to the house. I emailed the company we purchased the filtration system from, and he couldnt give me a clear answer on why it would do this after 2 days. He did mention that the pressure tank was in the wrong order in the system, and that may be causing it not to properly backwash.

Here's the order the system is in:

1. Line from the well, into a static mixer with peroxide injection point.
2. Carbon Tank
3. Brine Softener / Resin Tank
4. Pressure Tank
5. Line into house.

He's saying that the pressure tank should be after the point of injection. I have no problem re-routing the plumbing to where the pressure tank is 2nd in order, but want to make sure this is necessary before spending hours running more pipe. I watched it backwash, and it has plenty of flow coming out of the drain pipe. The water coming out is grey - black with the rotten egg smell. It was automatically backwashing each day at 12AM on its own.

The pressure tank sat for months with sulfur water in it. Would the "black" sediment be breaking lose and washing back and forth between the carbon tank and the pressure tank? Keep in mind it was crystal clear for 2 days.

I apologize for such a long post, and appreciate any help or recommendations! We've spent about $5500 and still have sulfur water!!! :mad:
 
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Drick

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Your pressure tank is in the wrong spot. It should be after the point of injection. I'm not convinced that its the source of your problems, but its likely not helping.

When the carbon media is new is contains a large amount of dust in it and unless it is well rinsed it will make its way into your water. I would manually regenerate both the carbon filter and the water softener a couple of times in a row to see if you can clear up the water.

My question to you is do you know if your carbon filter has been properly sized to the GPM output of your well? If the carbon filter is oversized it will not properly backwash.

Did anyone mention air injection systems to you? Just wondering because I also have H2S problems (mine isn't as bad as yours) and that is how I deal with it.

-rick
 

S Fields

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Thanks for your reply. Yes, I gave the specs of the well (GPM & water test readings) to the filtration company, and he matched up this system to our needs. I did research air injection, but was convinced by the filtration company, that this peroxide injection system, followed by the catalyst carbon, would take care of our problems.

I will try manually regenerating the carbon and softener a few times tomorrow and see if it improves any. If all else fails, unless otherwise directed on here, I will plumb the pressure tank in 2nd in line and see if that helps.

Can anyone explain why the pressure tank being where it is, could be causing problems? I'm with drick.. Im not convinced that is the problem, but i've been wrong before! :rolleyes:
 

Drick

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Under normal non backwash conditions water always enters the source side of the carbon filter and exits the supply side. During backwash water always enters the source side and exits the drain. BUT on your setup the pressure tank is on the supply side. When your filter goes into backwash the pressure tank is pushing water backwards thru your softener and potentially backwards thru your filter until the pressure drops enough for your pump to start. If your pump builds enough pressure to reach cutoff during the backwash this could happen over and over again during the backwash. This is likely part of the problem.
 

Gary Slusser

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Thanks for your reply. Yes, I gave the specs of the well (GPM & water test readings) to the filtration company, and he matched up this system to our needs. I did research air injection, but was convinced by the filtration company, that this peroxide injection system, followed by the catalyst carbon, would take care of our problems.

I will try manually regenerating the carbon and softener a few times tomorrow and see if it improves any. If all else fails, unless otherwise directed on here, I will plumb the pressure tank in 2nd in line and see if that helps.

Can anyone explain why the pressure tank being where it is, could be causing problems? I'm with drick.. Im not convinced that is the problem, but i've been wrong before! :rolleyes:

The reason he wants the pressure tank after the point of the injection of the peroxide is to use the pressure tank as a retention tank so the peroxide has time to work. The volume of a regular sized pressure tank will not allow sufficient time.

An air injection system probably would not work on your volume of H2S, neither would an air pump system but, any type of system is going to need a properly sized retention tank, and all the equipment should be after the pressure tank. Nothing that can block up should be between a pump and it's pressure switch.

Your (most likely Centaur) carbon is probably ruined due to a lack of proper retention time for the peroxide to work. And you may find that chlorine is a better choice than peroxide.

Drick is correct about the water flow being backwards from the pressure tank until the pump comes on.

Here is a link to an excellent mixing/retention tank;
http://4pureh2o.com/retention-tank.html

 
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Steve Simons

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Just found this forum and hoping some of you experts can help me.

The basics: Bought a mobile home in July 2011, no city water available, so we had well drilled. Immediately, we had very strong sulfur content 10+ ppm. The well driller installed a pressure tank and we ran a hose out of it and let it run several thousand gallons out after drilling. The sulfur content never got any better, so we had to go to plan B. We saved up and built a small, climate controlled, addition on to the back of the house to store our filtration system in. We went with a hydrogen peroxide injection system, with a catalyst carbon (tank) filter, and a water softener system.

After installation, we had sulfur free "clear" water for 2 days. Day 3 we started getting black sediment coming out of the faucets when we would turn them on for the first time in the morning, with a slight "rotten egg" odor. It would clear up after running it for a few minutes. Day 4, the smell was very strong, and the water was a continuous grey color. I went from 3 all the way to 10 on the Stenner pump with no improvement. I made sure it was injecting peroxide, and tried backwashing the system manually. After several hours just shut the water off to the house. I emailed the company we purchased the filtration system from, and he couldnt give me a clear answer on why it would do this after 2 days. He did mention that the pressure tank was in the wrong order in the system, and that may be causing it not to properly backwash.

Here's the order the system is in:

1. Line from the well, into a static mixer with peroxide injection point.
2. Carbon Tank
3. Brine Softener / Resin Tank
4. Pressure Tank
5. Line into house.

He's saying that the pressure tank should be after the point of injection. I have no problem re-routing the plumbing to where the pressure tank is 2nd in order, but want to make sure this is necessary before spending hours running more pipe. I watched it backwash, and it has plenty of flow coming out of the drain pipe. The water coming out is grey - black with the rotten egg smell. It was automatically backwashing each day at 12AM on its own.

The pressure tank sat for months with sulfur water in it. Would the "black" sediment be breaking lose and washing back and forth between the carbon tank and the pressure tank? Keep in mind it was crystal clear for 2 days.

I apologize for such a long post, and appreciate any help or recommendations! We've spent about $5500 and still have sulfur water!!! :mad:

I can give you some hard knock advice on this matter. We have a well that is likely in the worst area of Southeast Texas as it was an old oilfield operated back in the early 1900's and has literally thousands of abandoned open hole or log sealed oil wells. The ground water is so contaminated that the commercial property that doesn't have access to city water and sewage isn't being sold and developed. Too much liability for the oil company that still owns it.

Our H2S saturation was closer to 20ppm. We tried the whole chlorine binding, then charcoal filtering to rid the water of H2S. It would work for about 10 days until the sediment and the bound H2S would expire the $35 filter. You can see where this is going with cost, right?

We even had a commercial neighbor that could light a bic lighter from his faucet and the water would burn. Just bad, bad stuff.

Here is what we've done and it's working great.

Out of our well, we run the main line into a black 310 gallon, coned bottom tank. We enter the tank at the top and utilize a homemade spray bar with holes drilled into the PVC. This aerates the water in the tank and dissipates the H2S naturally through this vented tank. As this is a holding tank, this also allows the heavier sediment to settle into the bottom cone which is plumbed to a timed valve that dumps about a gallon of water every 24 hours.

H2S problem solved before we even get to the first filter. From 20ppm to zilch.

Then we utilize a booster pump to pressure up the pressure tank. We are currently utilizing a Stenner Pump set at 3 and injecting plain ol Chlorox bleach from Sam's right before the pressure tank. After the tank, I have a fine Stainless back washing screen that backwashes any sediment that might be caught here every 12 hours.

From the backwash screen, we go into a Big Blue filter housing and I am currently testing several types of media that will provide the best quality water. We still don't intend to drink it considering the water source but we know that the Nitrates are low and there is no sign of bacteria. The PH is looking good at 7 so we're good there too.

So.....no more sulphur smell in the building and the water is running clear. So far, so good.
 

Jeff Frederick

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S. Fields - did you ever resolve the problem? I have a similar problem. Every couple of weeks I need to bypass the carbon filter and run a couple hundred ppm of chlorinated water through the house to kill off the smell. Then after a few days to a week the smell starts building back. I have a chlorine pump adding to well water followed by holding tank followed by the filter. It seems like I am getting it in cold water as well as hot so I am not sure if the water heater is causing the issue.
 

Reach4

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S. Fields - did you ever resolve the problem? I have a similar problem. Every couple of weeks I need to bypass the carbon filter and run a couple hundred ppm of chlorinated water through the house to kill off the smell. Then after a few days to a week the smell starts building back. I have a chlorine pump adding to well water followed by holding tank followed by the filter. It seems like I am getting it in cold water as well as hot so I am not sure if the water heater is causing the issue.
Is the smell in hot only or both?

Do you have free chlorine test paper, such as http://www.lamotte.com/en/drinking-water/test-strips/2963lr-g.html ? I would make sure the water out of the contact tank into the carbon filter has residual free chlorine.

Do you wash out sediment from the contact tank drain periodically?
 

Jeff Frederick

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Is the smell in hot only or both?

Do you have free chlorine test paper, such as http://www.lamotte.com/en/drinking-water/test-strips/2963lr-g.html ? I would make sure the water out of the contact tank into the carbon filter has residual free chlorine.

Do you wash out sediment from the contact tank drain periodically?

The hot water definitely has picked up a smell. Not really h2s, maybe more like some sulfates or sulfides. Right now cold water still ok. I'll buy some test strips. I moved in 9 months ago and have never drained the bottom of mixing tank. I'll need to check on this. thanks.
 

MichaelSK

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Use a Hach H2S test (it uses gold alkaselzer) to test at the well head - I think it will be low. This would confirm that you have a bacterial problem. They metabolize the inorganics in the well water and produce H2S.

Best to use an injector to yield about 2ppm chlorine that must have about 20 - 30 minute contact time in a contact tank to kill the bacteria. The chlorine and other disinfection by-products are then removed with activated carbon (not a small carbon impregnated filter). ( PPM needed depends primarily on water temperature, pH, contact time (size/water use(flow demands)).

I use: flowmeter to accurately pump diluted "Clorox" (diluted "Chlorox is much more stable than concentrated solution) into a turbulent in-line mixer; contact tank; sediment filter (zeolite sand), activated carbon filter, water softener. Makes beautiful water. My system uses the flowmeter because the well is used for irrigation and an open-loop heat pump (the water used outside the house is not treated.)

I would not use an air injection system, or for that matter a hydrogen peroxide system when the problem is bacteria - oxygen will only make the matter worse.

Obviously, the most important task is to ascertain the source of the H2S - bacteria or not.
 

jimships

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The hot water definitely has picked up a smell. Not really h2s, maybe more like some sulfates or sulfides. Right now cold water still ok. I'll buy some test strips. I moved in 9 months ago and have never drained the bottom of mixing tank. I'll need to check on this. thanks.

You might consider changing the anodes in the hot water heater from magnesium to aluminum. There is a reaction happening with the magnesium.
 

Reach4

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The hot water definitely has picked up a smell. Not really h2s, maybe more like some sulfates or sulfides. Right now cold water still ok.
If you smell it, it is probably H2S by the time it hits your nose.

An aluminum anode would help, but a powered anode, with a long inert electrode, would help more. It would cost considerably more. I have one. Some people just remove the anode and put in a brass plug. I would not do that, because I want water heaters to last longer. Replacing anodes on an older WH will take an impact wrench. That may or may not be the case with a new WH.

The easiest and quickest thing that would help is to crank up the WH temperature.

EDIT: Every couple of weeks I need to bypass the carbon filter and run a couple hundred ppm of chlorinated water through the house to kill off the smell. Then after a few days to a week the smell starts building back. I have a chlorine pump adding to well water followed by holding tank followed by the filter. It seems like I am getting it in cold water as well as hot so I am not sure if the water heater is causing the issue.
My understanding is that SRB + sulfates and time and growing temperature gives H2S. This tells me that either your chlorine system is not enough to kill new SRB coming in, or SRB is surviving after your chlorine system somewhere. I don't know if you have a contact tank, but I think that is important if you kill without high chlorine levels. I think you should do a shock sanitizing that includes your WH and pipes and your GAC. I don't have GAC, and I am not sure what the method of sanitizing that should be. I do have a softener, and the softener method is to disinfect, but to limit the chlorine level and contact time to the resin.

For the WH and the hot water lines, I give strong chlorine (over 100ppm) with max 5.5 pH for a fairly long time.

https://terrylove.com/forums/index....izing-extra-attention-to-4-inch-casing.65845/ is my well and plumbing sanitizing write-up. You might get some ideas from that.
 
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