It is a common experience to smell bad and unpleasant odors in your household water. There is nothing more disturbing than a bad odor in your drinking water and worse when a sewage-like smell is slowly seeping out of the faucets in your house. This smell which can at times closely resemble that of rotten eggs or dirt can be as a result of various factors such as issues with the water heater or gases in the drain due to bacteria growth from food and waste.
Causes of bad smell in water
In most instances, bad smell in water can be attributed to presence of substances that include but not limited to hydrogen sulfide gas, chlorine used in water treatment, metallic smells and tastes from decaying iron, mercury, or lead seeping into your water supply system. It is worth noting that bad odors in water also affect its taste and consequently having a negative impact on the taste of the water. Decaying matter such as fish may also cause bad smells in water.
If the smell is present in all the water faucets in the home, then its most likely source is within the water supply. If it only occurs in select faucets, then the problem is probably in the pipes supplying water to those faucets. In addition to this, if the heater is left unused for a long duration of time, bacteria may grow in the heater due to low temperatures. The easiest way to identify whether this is the cause of rotten smells in your water is checking whether only smells when the heater is turned on.
Is there reason to worry about bad smells in my water?
Since there are very many reasons that can account for bad odors in water, it is important to take action once you detect unpleasant smells in your household water. This is because smells that are as a result of decaying iron, lead, or mercury seeping into water can be an indication of a looming health risk. These metal elements can cause cancer when absorbed in the body through drinking water. If you cannot seem to identify the exact cause of the smell in the water in your home, it is important to have the water tested by a professional. This will help you in being able to permanently eliminate the bad odor problem in your water.