Pouring bleach in a well every year?

[qwerty]

This well is in NW Marion County and somewhat iron water.
We have a water softener, that i admit I sometimes forget to add salt to.
My wife says because she smells an "odor", that means the well needs bleach.

I don't smell anything from the water, and drink it all the time.

As it is, my wife has always only drank bottled water in those flimsy hand held throwaway bottles.
She will often leave them in the car and they get heated up from the sun.
I tell this has a greater chance of harming her from the heat leached chemicals from this.

I'll probably end up doing it to stop her bugging me about it.
I just want to be sure I know what I'm doing enough not to screw up our well and water system.

Bleach will not solve the issue. As Butch627 noted, it's most likely your anode rod in the hot water heater. You can occasionally smell it in the cold water side as the hot water expands and works it way back into the cold water supply. This will get worse as the rod deteriorates over time, although I put in a new water heater a few months ago, and noticed it within a couple days. The old water heater (from 1978) was missing the rod, I took it out about 15 years ago when we moved in.

We have absolutely terrible iron in our well, but I have never used bleach in it. A good pre-filter (I have a 20in 5 micron melt-blown polypropylene) followed by some quality salt with the rust remover will help. Keep up on it though. I second having your water tested to ensure your settings are correct for your water hardness. Take hot, cold, and untreated samples with you. A good company will test them all to ensure you are working at peak performance.

As far as the anode rod... Well water often has sulfates and microorganisms and this is what is causing the odor as it reacts with the magnesium anode rod. Softened water can actually make it worse as softened water is more conductive. Replacing the rod with an aluminum/zinc rod will likely solve the issue. Our water is so bad we ended up having to go to a powered anode rod and that took care of the smell. I would also suggest a flush of the water heater to remove any iron sediment that has collected in the bottom of the tank.

Here is is the anode rod I took out after having the new water heater in service for a few days.

 

[2Lucky]

Using beach in the washer will kill the bacteria in your system which is needed to dissolve solids. Also alcohol and anything anti bacterial will do the same thing......

 

[Rookie]

Try this...

Add a few cups of hydrogen peroxide to your water heater. If the smell goes away, it's bacteria in the heater. If it is, get one of these...
https://www.amazon.com/Corro-Protec...ocphy=9016358&hvtargid=pla-305609225210&psc=1

 

[edporch]

We have lots of iron in our water and sulpher smell. I replaced the magnesium annode rod in the water heater with an aluminum one which cured the smell from the hot water. Cold water has no odor. I keep the water softener filled up and use a charcoal filter for drinking water. Drinking water has zero after taste. I suggest that maybe you should have your water tested to see if your water softener settings are correct.

Butch627 and qwerty,
I asked my wife and she says she smells it the most when she takes a shower.
(I don't smell anything because I don't have much of a sense of smell)

The water heater is pretty old, as when we got this place in 4/16, the inspector said the water heater was reaching the end of it's life.
So maybe the water heater is involved in this.
Thanks for the info.

 

[edporch]

Thanks everybody for the information.
You all have been helpful and I appreciate it.