By all kinds of tests, I mean lab tests. All came back negative. No
one can recognize the smell but the concensus is that its an organic
smell. The water company offered to install a $500 large block carbon
filter. Is that decent price?


On Nov 22, 9:44 am, wrote:
car crash wrote:
We have a strong smell in hot and cold water. All kinds of tests
can't identify the smell. Someone suggested a carbon filter will help.
Does anyone know anything about carbon filters and could help me of
whether they are a good product to have or not ? Do they build up alot
of germs in the filter?
Thanks.I'm curious about your "all kinds of tests" - have you acutally had
this tested by a lab, or by 'tests', do you mean you've held it up next
to gasoline and decided it doesn't smell like that?
A carbon filter would probably help, but not guaranteed - if your
problem is some organic compound, carbon should definitely help. I
don't think there are any drawbacks to carbon filters, as long as you
change them roughly to keep up with the manufacturer's recommendations.
We have a carbon filter mounted on our kitchen sink, and though it
says to change every 3 months, we sometimes get 4, but it's starting to
get scummy and slows down at that point and I wouldn't want to go any
longer. Our water is pretty good to begin with, but it helps some with
taste and makes my wife feel better by reducing tasteless pollutants
like atrazine.
As far as "germs", some bacteria and/or fungi can eventually start to
grow on the filter, but as long as you change the filter semi-regularly
(depends on size of filter), you should definitely be filtering out
more than you're adding.
One quick test you could do is to get or borrow a Brita-type pitcher
filter - that's just a small carbon filter. If that helps, you could
keep it, move up to a faucet-mount, an under-sink mount, or a
whole-house filter if you want to filter shower water too. If you do a
lot of lawn watering, you might want to check into a bypass valve, or
installing the filter after the hose spigots, so you're not wasting
your filtered water on your lawn.
Good luck,
Andy