I smell rotten eggs.

[Roy D. Cooke, Sr]

Did an inspection on a home and it sat empty for a while .
Lady moved in and had a bad water smell Real bad .
She called me for advice .
I asked if it smelled in the outside tap.
They found out it did not smell there and the eventually traced it to the water softner
This was in both hot and Cold so it was obvious not the hot water tank .

Roy Cooke

[Jae Williams]

Are you referring to this one...

HYDROGEN-BOMB Dishwasher













__________________________________________________ _____________________________


That's the call a fire department received last winter from a base-housing inspector. The inspector had been doing normal bimonthly checks of vacant units when this happened.

The inspector's usual procedure was to run the cold water in the kitchen sink, turn on the dishwasher, go upstairs to flush the commode, and run the water in the bathroom. About three minutes after she started the dishwasher, it exploded. The blast propelled the dishwasher (which was installed under the kitchen counter) across the kitchen. The cabinets, plumbing and walls were damaged.

The concussion splintered the face of the rear door to the housing unit and blew it open, destroying the lock. Pieces of the dishwasher and cabinets were scattered over 20 feet. The access panel to the attic on the second floor was dislodged, and the front door was blown open and damaged.

At first, investigators thought water in the "s" trap had evaporated, allowing sewer gas to seep into the dishwasher and explode. The next day, Navy Occupational Safety and Health (NAVOSH) technicians tested all kitchen-sink drains in vacant units for signs of sewer gas. The results were negative. During the course of the investigation, a maintenance worker in the housing department pointed out a paragraph in the dishwasher-owner's manual to the NAVOSH specialist. It read, "...under certain conditions, hydrogen gas may be produced in a hot water system that has not been used for two weeks or more. If the hot-water system has not been used for such a period, before using the dishwasher, turn on all hot-water faucets and let the water flow."

The safety specialist returned to three of the vacant housing units and ran the hot water to test for emission of hydrogen gas. The meter readings went off scale in these units. Then he ran hot water in three occupied units and got zero readings. When he ran hot water in an upstairs bathroom in the unit where the dishwasher exploded, he got an extremely high reading. After NAVOSH personnel made several calls to the Frigidaire Company about the incident, a person from their legal department returned his call and told him that Frigidaire was sending two engineers to investigate the exploding dishwasher.







The engineers and NAVOSH personnel tested hot water in two vacant units. They placed clear garbage bags over the faucets to sample for gas contents. The first test resulted in the bag filling with about one to two quarts of water and a cubic foot of gas. They suspected the bulk of the gas was a combination of hydrogen and oxygen, which was generated by electrolysis in the hot-water heating systems.
One of the engineers explained that there is no way to stop hydrogen gas from forming in hot-water heaters because of the metals used in constructing the tanks. Hydrogen gas isn't soluble in water, so it remains in the water-heater plumbing system as a gas under pressure. In most homes, the gas will migrate to the upper levels of the house, where it harmlessly is expelled from water faucets there. However, occasionally, it can end up trapped in the plumbing lines. In that case, when a lower level faucet (or dishwasher) is turned on, the gas is pushed through the outlet rather than finding its way to the upper level.

Hydrogen gas has one of the broadest flammable ranges of any gas. Just about any mixture will be enough to result in an explosion. The engineer theorized that the gas was forced through the dishwasher, and the timer or starter relay had enough heat to ignite the gas. However, the dishwasher was destroyed, which made it impossible to determine the exact source of ignition. The engineer said this was the first time he had heard of a dishwasher exploding, but he had heard stories of small fires at faucets because people had cigarettes in their hands when they opened a hot-water faucet that had not been opened for some time. Later, in a telephone conversation, he told the NAVOSH person that he had talked to a few old-timers in the water-heating industry, and one of them had reviewed a mishap about a washing machine blowing up in the '60s.





What This Means to You…

When you move into a house or apartment that has been vacant, hydrogen gas may have built up in hot water lines, which could cause an explosion. The same is true when you return home from a vacation or open up a vacation home that has been shut.

Appliance manufacturers can do nothing to prevent this type of thing from happening again, but you, as a resident or housing inspector, can do a short ORM assessment to prevent such a recurrence. You need to know that hydrogen gas can accumulate in hot-water systems that have not been operated for a period of time. You figure the risk of something going wrong when you turn on a dishwasher to either check it or operate. If you have been using it daily, there is hardly any risk. When you go to start the dishwasher, ask yourself how long the unit has been vacant. If it's more than a couple of weeks, you need to think about getting rid of the gas before you turn on the dishwasher.

If you suspect hydrogen gas may have built up in the hot-water system, flush it by turning on all hot-water faucets in the building and letting them run for several minutes. And don't smoke while you're doing it.

If you live in the home and are away for a vacation, do this every time you return home.

[Charley L. Bottger]

Thats it JAS you got it.
You must of had that hid for a while. Thanks

[rwand1]

There is different types of sulphur compounds in well waters.

[Charley L. Bottger]

Originally Posted by rwand1

There is different types of sulphur compounds in well waters.

I would agree but sulfur smell is sulfur smell it all smells like crap. Yes I understand what you are saying.

[Larry E. Freeze]

Smell rotten egg odor? WARNING!!!!!!
Having heard about the story in the website below, I AM EXTREMELY CAUTIOUS if I smell rotten egg smell....it's hydrogen sulfide, [H2S] precisely the same gaseous, very explosive chemical produced by rotten eggs...(they don't call it 'rotten egg smell' for nuthin!)....Especially if a home has been vacant for awhile, the sacrificial anodes (often aluminum or magnesium) can create H2S, (particularly in areas which have significant sulfur content...and esp. water wells) which can dissolve in the closed water/plumbing system. Any kind of spark, even turning on the dishwasher can cause an explosion.
Even if you do not smell the rotten egg H2S, there is still a possibility of the sacrificial anodes to produce odorless, extremely flammable hydrogen gas [H2].
In any event, any time I enter a home that has been vacant for awhile, I first let every faucet I can find run for quite awhile...smell for rotten egg smell....if I smell it, i let it run a long time before even thinking about flipping on any electrical switches, and ESPECIALLY before running the dishwasher, or using a burned-match-smoke test to check for water heater flue drafting.
I do believe the story embedded in the website below is a true one...it is certainly based upon sound chemical science.
Bottom line: Entering a home that has not had water running for awhile:
BE VEWWWWWYYYY VEWWWWWYYYY CAREFUL !
Larry (not Elmer Fudd)

http://www.iconocast.com/News_Files/...X_U1/News6.htm

[rwand1]

I agree the odour can be from the anode, but
I have taken the anode out of my electric heater and still get the odour. But I know there is sulphite reducing bacteria in the water. I also have hard water fwiw.

[phinsperger]

http://www.waterheaterrescue.com/pag...intenance.html

We had had an aluminum/zinc anode in the tank for quite awhile for smelly water problems, but we decided to change back to a magnesium one. The water seems to have changed because we've had no new odor problems....
...We strongly favor magnesium anodes over aluminum ones unless there are smelly-water problems. We have health concerns about aluminum. Also, being a less reactive metal, it doesn't protect the tank as well as magnesium. Finally, it generates an enormous amount of corrosion byproduct, which vastly adds to the sediment buildup on the bottom of the tank.
But if you have odor problems, aluminum/zinc anodes can solve them, where magnesium or straight aluminum anodes will stink to high heaven. There are the same issues as with aluminum, but the alloy rods provide the cheapest fix we know to this problem....

http://www.plumbingsupply.com/anoderods.html

"I have a sulfur odor smell coming from the hot water side of my faucets. A friend of mine told me that it might be caused by my water heater anode rod. Is that true and if so, if I remove the anode rod will the odors go away?"
The cause of odor in a water heater in many cases is caused by bacteria. That bacteria in most cases is harmless but loves the hot water environment as well as some anode rod material (usually magnesium). Changing a magnesium anode rod to either of the types that we offer might get rid of the problem. Because there are so many factors we can not guarantee that the odor will be eliminated but if you have no odor on the cold side of a faucet and only the warm side generally (not 100%) replacing a magnesium anode rod with one of ours will solve the problem. Some water heater manufacturers' claim that softened water causes the problems. We have a hard time believing that. Removal of the bacteria will also solve the odor problem. Sanitizing the water heater (with safe levels of bleach, etc), will eliminate the odor but only for a variable (relatively short) length of time. A trace amount of H2S gas in the water is another cause of hot water odor but removal of the anode rod will not cure that odor problem.
It is best to always have an anode rod in your glass-lined steel water heater tank.

An aluminum anode hex head will be flat on top, while a magnesium rod will have a bump, as in the photo above. The exception to that is Rheem and its sub-brands, Ruud/Richmond/General Electric. Rheem uses magnesium even though there is no bump on top of its anodes.