Water tastes like dirt

[Robby DeNicola]

I've had my water softener for about a year now and everything has been great. But recently the water coming out of my tap smells and tastes like potting soil. I have municipal water and I've taken a sample upstream of my softener and it doesn't smell or taste like potting soil. Is it possible that there is sediment laid out in the softener or in my brine tank? Shouldn't the softener backflush get rid of any sediment inside the softener itself? I'm thinking maybe there's sediment laid out in the brine tank, but right now I've got about a hundred and twenty pounds of salt in there. Any thoughts?

 

[zer0]

Sorry to hear that. Sounds awful.

There are unfortunately many things that can go wrong, but an easy check would be to bypass (manually) the softener and see if your water still tastes like dirt.

Assuming it does not, next thing to check would be regen cycle. Force a regen and see what happens. It could also be algae buildup in the resin bed. Ive seen this happen with people who have very long times between regen, say, 2 weeks, or people that use a lot less water than the softener is setup for. You should always regen at least once a week to prevent buildup of bacteria/algae, and to flush/fluff the resin bed.

Is your unit upflow or downflow?

 

[Sponsor]

 

[ditttohead]

I disagree with the frequency of regeneration, and this comes from 30 years of extensive field experience in industrial, commercial and residential water treatment. In general regenerating monthly is adequate for most applications. Most modern softeners have a day override feature that forces a regen at pre determined intervals in order to keep the system from getting nasty from sitting for extensive periods of time. Consider the use of exchange tanks, most of these are sized for monthly exchanges without nay problems. I have seen tanks full of algae and much more but there is usually an underlying reason and frequency of regeneration has never been a factor that was determined to be the cause. Common problems include translucent tanks installed outside, systems installed in perpetually warm locations, lack of regular sanitizing of the system, and a simple lack of sanitizing of the system during start-up. Bactria and biologic issues are common in all water that does not have an active sanitizing agent in the water. As soon as it is removed biological fouling will start almost immediately. It is more about controlling rather than eliminating it. Here is a short article I wrote on the topic. Start by sanitizing your softener and plumbing after the softener to see if this takes care of the problem. https://view.publitas.com/impact-water-products/2018-catalog-final/page/282-283

 

[Robby DeNicola]

Thanks for the replies guys. Did some testing with the softener bypassed, no dirt smell/taste. Interestingly enough when i put the softener back in, i didn't have the dirt smell or taste. So I got to thinking....maybe it's the HOT water....BINGO. When I turned the hot water on, good lord it smelt like rocks/dirt. My hot water heater is about 6 years old, I should probably blow it down, I've probably got a massive amount of sediment built up in it. Thanks for the help!

 

[ditttohead]

Annual blowdowns are recommended. I would highly recommend doing it on a Saturday morning. The valves at the bottom of the water heater tanks are usually not to the highest quality standards. If it fails or breaks, you have the whole day to figure out how to repair/replace it. I would also rcommend replacing it with a ball valve type of hose bib. These are full port valves so they tend to not clog up with debris. They also allow you to purge the water heater at a higher velocity.

 

[Bannerman]

Water tastes like dirt

So I got to thinking....maybe it's the HOT water....BINGO.

Are you drinking hot water from the water heater?

Although your water source is municipal and so will be disinfected, chlorine residual will decline, especially when heated. Bacteria can colonize in water that is below the temperature that will kill bacteria. If your water heater is set to 140F or less, in addition to the blowdowns, suggest periodically raising the tank temperature to 160F or above for 2-3 hours to disinfect the tank interior, and then open the hot faucets to sanitize the plumbing lines running to each faucet.

 

[ditttohead]

Excellent point. Check out this article, it shows a great relation to warmer water and bacterial issues. As noted, basically all water has biological issues but certain factors can really contribute to it, warm water is the worst. This is one of the main problems with tank heaters. If they are set real low for safety, ie:120 degrees, they can really start to get nasty. Tankless at 120 tend to be fine since they are cold most of the time and the water velocity through the pipes is usually quite fast, velocity helps remove the bacteria from piping. We use a lot of velocity calculations in WFI and ultra high purity water. Undersized distribution is usually better than oversized for these biological growth sensitive applications.
https://view.publitas.com/impact-water-products/2018-catalog-final/page/282-283

 

[DonL]

I just have to ask.

How do you know what dirt tastes like.

Good Luck.

 

[WorthFlorida]

When I turned the hot water on, good lord it smelt like rocks/dirt.

Sure it is not sulfur odors or rotten egg smell? Does your municipal water company get the water from wells or reservoirs? You still need to sanitize the water heater.
http://www.waterheaterrescue.com/Troubleshooting/stinky-water-in-hot-water-heaters.html

 

[Robby DeNicola]

Thanks for the update and suggestions. My salt water tank has the "rocky" smell to it. In fact I can see a brownish "dust" or maybe it's a brown algae. I'm going to clean out the salt tank and I'll crank the HW heater way up over night and then drain and refill and see if that helps. My municipal water has about 1.5 2 ppm of chlorine, but after the softener, it's essentially gone, so it's possible that the HW is growing something gross.

 

[ditttohead]

Possible. Be sure to bleach the salt tank after you empty it. A spray bottle with a some bleach is al the is needed.

Most salt is 99.5% pure salt, so a quick math calculation shows that after 5 years of usage, averaging 300 pounds per year, this would leave 7.5 pounds of "other than salt" and since a large percentage of salt is "solar" with lots of birds flying over it near the ocean or salt lakes, anyone want to guess what a portion of the 7.5 pounds might be made of?

 

[DonL]

Possible. Be sure to bleach the salt tank after you empty it. A spray bottle with a some bleach is al the is needed.

Most salt is 99.5% pure salt, so a quick math calculation shows that after 5 years of usage, averaging 300 pounds per year, this would leave 7.5 pounds of "other than salt" and since a large percentage of salt is "solar" with lots of birds flying over it near the ocean or salt lakes, anyone want to guess what a portion of the 7.5 pounds might be made of?

Bird Eggs.

 

[Ronald Morrow]

just replaced my well pump. Well was shocked and allowed to run but water now tastes like dirt. Even when making coffee or tea. How long should I experience this?

 

[Reach4]

just replaced my well pump. Well was shocked and allowed to run but water now tastes like dirt. Even when making coffee or tea. How long should I experience this?

I presume this is a deep well.

I would try pumping and dumping for another 24 hours if you don't run out of water. If you run out of water, let the well rest, and resume pumping. I am not a pro.