Sulfur odor in only bathroom cold water

[RSA]

I have a very strong sulfur odor coming from bathroom sink and shower cold water. Kitchen cold water has no odor. Draining water directly from the water storage tank passes the smell test as well as directly from the water pump. Hot water in either location passes too. I did sanitize the storage tank after winter storage and through the first few weeks of spring use periodically whiffed a slight sulfur odor in both kitchen and bathroom but it wasn't constant.
Now it has returned with a vengeance. Given that the water lines run from a common tee(s) I'm slightly perplexed. Only thought is to use vinegar sucked from antifreeze pickup and run out bathroom faucet/shower head.

[Morich]

I'm not sure how this can happen either as the sulphur/ rotten egg smell we used to get in wells is not likely to happen in an RV if the tanks are used or drained at times.

But also, I might question why you would choose vinegar? It really does work on a few bacteria as it is a weak acid but nearly useless for treating water as it doesn't kill most of the things we deal with.
If strong enough and left to set for enough time, the acid content might work to clean some of the alkaline mineral deposits but it's not first choice for doing much else for water.

Again, I would say it seems very unlikely but if you do have the bacteria that feeds on iron in the water suppply and makes the water smell and taste like sulphur, the treament most water folks use is bleach as the chlorine does kill the iron eating bacteria in wells where treatment is somewhat common.

When growing up,"bad wells" were just accepted as normal but over the years we have learned quite a bit about the buggers that caused the problem!


Since you are not sure what is causing the smell, I would favor doing a regular sanitize treament as if the RV had been stored. If you check any of the owners manuals, they almost always spell out how to do the treatment.

[RSA]

Thank you for your reply

This coach is parked and static, water supplied by a well that services a residence. The water storage tank gets filled semi-weekly rather than by a constant hose connection.
I did pump-in a 1/2 gallon of vinegar that afternoon with the shower/sink cold water opened and let sit for 30 min. After flushing with tank water the sulfur odor was gone and this morning no vinegar or sulfur odor. Fingers crossed hoping that the problem doesn't return, at least for a good number of weeks.

[Morich]

At one point when first retired, I worked for a water treament company in the St. Louis area which has a lot of different water supplies. Water fromthe rivers, city water, wellsin and around the whole area, so that the supply was often very different and one of those problem areas was near the iron mining areas, where there is still a lot of iron orein the ground water for wells.

One of the fun things Ilearned was that the "bad wells" that I had gropwn up around were not actaully badwater but there are some type of "bug" that lives on the iron content in that water!
So to make a "bad well" good, we could go out, pull the cover on the well and pour several gallons of plainold cheap bleah in and let it set fot a specific time and then flush the well until the smell was gone as a way to clear the bacteria,etc. that made the water bad! Peope who had used bad wells for decades could suddenly drink the water without holding their nose and thought we were heros!

I can't really think of a way that would get going in an RV but that was the only real idea I had, so if it comes back,perhaps worth a try?

Bleach is what small companies use to treatment of the water across the country and with care it is nothing to worry about, so certainly safe. but the smell is one of the things that does take some careto make it strong enough to do the job and then rinse or air out so it is not a problem to drink.

Glad to hear you have gotten around the problem and let's just hope it doesn't come back but that is what we have to deal with as we go day by day!!