LESLIE: Alright. Now we’ve got Alan in Naples, Florida who is dealing with a well-water situation. Tell us what’s going on.
ALAN: I’ve got a salt-based water-softening system for our well water. And we use a combination of citric acid, along with a chlorinating tank, to keep that sulfur smell out of sinks and showers, which works well but unfortunately, as far as the laundry goes, we still seem to have a lingering smell to the clothes. Is there any kind of – or do you know of any kind of system that – or filtration system I can add to the incoming water to the laundry, to the washing machine, that might be able to help?
TOM: So your filtration system is located where now? Is it on the main water valve or not?
ALAN: Well, outside we’ve got it attached to where the water-softening tanks are; we’ve got a water-filtration system out there. As far as the drinking water, I’ve got a separate osmosis system under the sink. But as far as the laundry goes, it’s just directly from the salt-water tanks.
TOM: Alright. So your water softeners are located at the point of entry so, in fact, all the water that goes into the house does go through the softener, correct?
ALAN: Correct, yes.
TOM: And then the drinking water also goes through a reverse-osmosis filter and that’s why you don’t have the odor or – that’s associated with the water that goes through the laundry, because that’s not going through reverse osmosis.
ALAN: Exactly. And as far as the showers and the sinks go, we do add (audio gap) acid to the salts and that helps. And we have a separate chlorinating tank also attached to the salt-water softening system. But it’s still not enough for the washing machine.
TOM: Alan, it sounds to me like the filtration system that you have is just not adequate for dealing with the odor. What happens is you get hydrogen sulfide into the water and you’re not seeing this, obviously, at the faucets because you’ve got reverse osmosis going on for you. But the filtration system that you’re using outside – the salt-based system – it’s just not adequate enough to reduce the odor issue and that’s why it’s kind of getting through there.
So if you want to have fresh-smelling clothes, you’re going to have to upgrade that whole-house filtration system. There are specific filters for hydrogen sulfide that are added.
Do you have a service company that services your filtration system, like a Culligan or something like that?
ALAN: Yeah, we’ve got a private contractor (inaudible at 0:32:57).
TOM: I think you need to address this with your contractor, because you don’t have the right combination of filters to deal with the odor issue.
ALAN: OK.
TOM: And it’s bothering you and obviously, it’s going to have to be dealt with.
ALAN: Alright. Well, thank you very much for your time.
TOM: You’re welcome. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
Leave a Reply