Wheres My Water on Again Off Again
While well-nigh people get their drinking water from public water supplies, more than 13 1000000 households in the United States rely on private wells for their drinking water. Well water can blot many different compounds from the surrounding soil — and when levels of compounds like sulfur get too high, you'll need to filter information technology. If you're dealing with high levels of sulfur in your drinking supply, learn how to remove sulfur from well water.
What Is Sulfur and How Does Information technology Become in Well Water?
Sulfur is a naturally occurring chemical chemical compound. There are ii sources of sulfur in well water – sulfates and hydrogen sulfide gas.
- Sulfates are a blazon of salt that contains sulfur. They may be in the soil and rocks surrounding your well. As groundwater and rainwater seep through the soil and rocks, they tin can carry sulfates into your well water.
- Hydrogen sulfide gas (H2S) can happen naturally when plants or other organic material decays. It tin can also be related to pollution in the water. And when sulfur bacteria feed on sulfates in well h2o, they tin create H2S. You'll demand to remove the H2S from your water and vent the gas from low-lying spaces effectually your well.
Is Sulfur Harmful?
It depends on the level of sulfates or hydrogen sulfide in the water. In small amounts, these things don't crusade a problem.
Too much sulfate can crusade diarrhea and aridity. Information technology tin can too have a bitter taste, clog your pipes with slime and stain your laundry.
Besides much H2S causes a rotten egg smell in well water. In large amounts, information technology can exist poisonous and lead to nausea and illness — just this is more likely to happen from breathing the gas than from drinking water. H2S tin can also corrode pipes and stain your utensils.
How Can I Tell If My Well Water Has Sulfur?
At that place are a few ways to tell if you have a sulfur problem:
- Smell or taste — Sulfur has a distinctive scent like to rotten eggs, and sulfates tin can requite water a bitter sense of taste. If your well water has sulfur in it, you may discover an unpleasant aroma or odd gustatory modality.
- Slime or stains — Sulfur bacteria can leave black stains or a white, greyness, black or reddish-brown slime on silverware or plumbing.
- Water tests — Get your well water tested every twelvemonth, even if you don't find signs of sulfur or other bug. You can find several different water testing kits online or in stores. Simply to ensure accurate results, notice a land-certified laboratory to do the tests. And check with your local health section first, in example they provide these tests for free.
How Tin I Remove Sulfur From My Well Water?
There are many options for removing sulfur from your well water. The best option for you lot will depend on the source of the sulfur, how serious the problem is and how much you're able to spend. Options include:
- Activated carbon filtration — Activated carbon filters utilise small pieces of porous carbon (like charcoal) to concenter chemicals in water and filter them out. Yous can install an activated carbon filtration system equally a depression-toll and low maintenance solution to remove a low concentration of sulfur — but information technology won't handle loftier concentrations of sulfur.
- Aeration treatment — This is a low-price and rubber solution that adds air to the water. This process may reduce the hydrogen sulfide to acceptable levels, but may not get rid of it completely. And it won't kill sulfur bacteria.
- Chlorine bleach — You can inject chlorine bleach into your h2o before filtration. This is a low-price solution that can effectively remove medium-to-high levels of hydrogen sulfide from your water. Just this method isn't fast-acting, and it also adds sodium to the water and can go out toxic balance.
- Potassium permanganate — You lot tin can use potassium permanganate solution in combination with a special blazon of filter to remove sulfur particles. This procedure gets rid of several odors, merely it can be toxic and may leave your water looking pink.
- Hydrogen peroxide — This is a fast and safety solution that leaves no chemical residue and no sense of taste in the h2o. But an annual supply of peroxide may be expensive, and so it's not as mutual in private dwelling water systems.
- Ozone gas — This is besides a fast and safe solution that leaves no chemical residue. But ozone systems are expensive, and they add together gases to the water that you and then need to vent.
If you lot own a individual well, or are thinking of putting one in, check in with your local health department most maintenance procedures to brand sure your h2o is safe for everyday use. Many health departments offer free water testing to check the levels of sulfur and other compounds — and they can provide more than detailed communication about the best filtration methods.
Resource Links
- "Hydrogen Sulfide and Sulfur Bacteria in Well Water" via Minnesota Department of Health
- "Hydrogen Sulfide and Sulfate in Private Drinking Water Wells" via University of Massachusetts Amherst
- "Individual Drinking Water Wells" via U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Source: https://www.symptomfind.com/healthy-living/remove-sulfur-from-well-water?utm_content=params%3Ao%3D740013%26ad%3DdirN%26qo%3DserpIndex
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