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lhort 08-07-2013 06:03 AM

black sediment in well water
Hi, we occasionally have black sediment in our well water. Noticed it when the cold water was on. This happens once in awhile, but if you run the water for a few minutes it clears up. It normally happens when you first turn on the faucet. I don't recall ever noticing it when the water was on a for long time.

Up to a few years ago we always had very good water a bit hard but no smell. Then it started smelling a bit funny and there seems to be iron in it. Coincidentally, my neighbor, had trouble with his well running out of water and about 2 yrs ago he blasted his well with nitrogen? to open up a vein??.

I'm not sure what we should do?
#1 have the water tested by an independent source, not a company that sells water treatments
or contact a company like Culligan?
#2 Install a whole house water filter. Does it go before water tank or after?
#3 Could it be the pipes? House was built in the 1950s.

Thank you in advance.

Speedbump 08-07-2013 09:31 AM

Hydrogen Sulfide is a mineral that releases a gas that smells like rotten eggs. It also leaves a black coating on your pipes. An inline "so called whole house filter" might trap the particles you are seeing from in front of itself, but not after. The black coating is in suspension, so until it makes a coating and breaks off in little pieces later, the filter doesn't even know it's there. Same for iron. Save your money, or keep buying the cartridges every few months. In my opinion, those filters are a joke.

If you want to filter out iron, a real iron filter will be needed. We sell a filter that removes iron and sulphur without any chemical usage. It uses air only. It will also remove the flakes in front of itself, but not after. All the filter removes from sulphur is the gas that makes your water smell.

Drywallinfo 08-07-2013 12:36 PM

A very inexpensive inline filter might take care of this. The one we have is like the one shown at

Just install (or sweat in) the in and out fittings. Replace the cartridge every month or so. And if you have a smell in your water, you can soak the cartridge in a bleach solution before installing and it will clean that smell out nicely as well - just run a little bit of water through each tap so the weak bleach solution gets in all your plumbing. Let this sit for a few minutes. Then run water in each tap for a few minutes to purge out the bleach. The bleach will kill the bacteria that feeds off the iron - the bacteria give off the hydrogen sulfide that produces the smell.
