Really Bad Sulphur Water

[bishopev]

We moved into our house 2 years ago and always with the intention of wanting to install an inground pool for our family to enjoy. My husband and I are really concerned if it's still possible to have an inground pool we can enjoy since we have such bad sulphur and hard water. We had already planned to have the initial fill hauled in so we would start with city water. My concern is just having to add water here and there. Is the really hard water going to corrode any pipes way too soon and the awful bad egg smell that the sulphur water brings, will that definitely be able to be contained with the other chemicals? We would like to have a salt water pool. Looking for advice from someone other than the guy just looking to sell us a pool.

We live in northeast Ohio. Any thoughts are appreciated.

Thanks!
Eric and Jen

 

[Wildcat]

http://www.extension.purdue.edu/extmedia/wq/wq-11.html

I was intrigued by your problem and since I have no direct expertise in this area I googled and found this study from Indiana, Purdue University consumer services.

The introduction of Chlorine is one of the solutions it appears, but the system they show looks expensive. Then again they seem to be talking about removing sulphur from your tap water on a continuous basis. Perhaps CL would remove the smell from your pool water and since you only replace a little water each day maybe CL will keep it under control. I bet the CL experts here will have an answer for you, good luck

 

[JohnT]

Welcome to TFP!

The sulphur in your water is probably hydrogen sulfide. Pretty nasty smell, but it won't stay in the water after it is exposed to the air. Unfortunately that is sometimes produce by bacteria tha feed on iron, so you'll want to know if there is iron in the water before you get started.

We have hydrogen sulfide in our water to the extent we have a treatment system in the house for it. Our outside water isn't treated, and I've never noticed the smell in the pool.

Any chance you have a pond or stream you could get water from?

 

[linen]

Welcome to tfp, bishopev

Do you have a private well? If you do, most likely the sulfur smell is caused by a sulfur bacteria in your well and can easily be treated with chlorine. The Minnesota Department of Health has put together a great article on how to disinfect a well with bleach. See this for an explanation: http://www.mrwa.com/watersmellrotteneggs.htm...and this for the disinfection procedurehttp://www.health.state.mn.us/divs/eh/wells/waterquality/disinfection.pdf.

With that said, assuming the smell is caused by Hydrogen Sulfide Gas caused by the Sulfur bacteria in a well, it shouldn't be a problem for a pool, and any smell that is there during fill will quickly be gone as the Hydrogen Sulfide gas out-gasses. However, having iron in the water can be a problem for staining pool surfaces. For that reason, if your iron level is high you may still want to truck in water. Do you know your iron level?

Lastly, even fairly hard water can usually be managed. Do you know what pool surface you would have?

It would be interesting to have the fill water tested for ph, TA, CH...oh and iron.

 

[bishopev]

Thank you for the feedback. We have what I like to refer to as our own little water treatment plant in our basement. The water goes through two different tanks and still isn't what I would consider drinkable. It's very corrosive to our faucets. I don't think it's bacteria in the well as there have been 3 separate wells dug and concluded that we just can't seem to get away from this particular vein. The water is very hard and high sulphur. Bad thing is, we live only 1.5 miles from a city water line. Might as well be 20 though for the cost to get them to come down our road.