Rotten smell from electric geyser

So today cleansed the geyser 4 times in hot water mixed with Hydrogen peroxide. Changed the water after a good 30mins so entire process lasted 2hrs. After every refuel, shook the geyser to mix it fine and cleanse it good internally and during flushing out occasionally noticed some whitish cloudy liquid. Hydrogen peroxide was fully transparent like water so may be the white liquid was the effect of cleaning.

Then attached the geyser to the source and left the water to flow through to cleanse internally off any remnants.

Now, cannot test the geyser as even though I have installed it back, the hot water tap outlet joint will need plumbers help to tighten it properly as by using homely tools it couldn't be tightened as required and the water is oozing and spraying from it so cannot risk testing heating the water..risky!
 
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The whitish cloudy liquid is dead bacteria from the H2O2. If you pour some in your kitchen sink you will notice the same thing. If you see it it means the H2O2 is working.

Thing is that bottle you got is so small. 25ml I don't think can do much. The bottles I get are 400ml and the last one cost Rs.60

The problem is dosing. Some I've seen say to use 50/50 to sanitise. For a 3 litre tank that means half as much H2O2 (!)

So people recommend bleach like Rin. It's cheaper but needs to be properly rinsed out many times. A sanitising dose is 200 ppm so 600ml and the rest water filled will do it.

That is why I said to stick to hot water and fill it completely then let it sit for half an hour. Empty it out. Repeat.

From what you said its not clear whether you filled it full. If you have to shake it that is not the same as letting all of the internals sit in contact with hot water for half an hour, is it?

By avoiding this H2O2 or bleach, there would be no manual work on your side too. But it requires filling and emptying a number of times which should not be a big deal.
 
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blr_p said:
Thing is that bottle you got is so small. 25ml I don't think can do much. The bottles I get are 400ml and the last one cost Rs.60
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I bought 4 bottles and there was no logic to show all 4 here.
blr_p said:
The problem is dosing. Some I've seen say to use 50/50 to sanitise. For a 3 litre tank that means half as much H2O2 (!)
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Used almost all 4 though 4th one has barely 30% left..

blr_p said:
So people recommend bleach like Rin. It's cheaper but needs to be properly rinsed out many times. A sanitising dose is 200 ppm so 600ml and the rest water filled will do it.
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It was my first thought but detergent is very foamy and soapy and cleansing with it manually is a too much of a tedious job hence this thread.

blr_p said:
That is why I said to stick to hot water and fill it completely then let it sit for half an hour. Empty it out. Repeat.
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Actually we already tried it last week, zero effect!

blr_p said:
From what you said its not clear whether you filled it full. If you have to shake it that is not the same as letting all of the internals sit in contact with hot water for half an hour, is it?
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Yes, full to top level like over-flow! But the thing to learn is if you try tor refill via inlet pipe it will barely fill to just 30ml and overflow so tried through the outlet and I was able to refill the geyser to full tank!
But before doing a full tank, I only filled it to half level so that the water inside shakes well and so the peroxide as well mixes properly before refilling to full.
 
And when are we going to know if all this has worked or not ? you said you need to get a plumber which i expect you got over the weekend
 
Same thing happened to us in the guest room... At the onset of winters...
Society plumber suggested to heat and flush water multiple times... Maybe did it 3 or 4 times...
Has been OK since then (used regularly since weather was colder)...

Will ensure to run the geyser taps, even if it is for continuous flow through it to avoid such issues in future..
 
I get sewage laden dirty water 11 months in a year. Stagnant water creates a slimy layer inside the buckets, mugs etc. Internet says this could be biofilm/green algae, black mold, hydrogen-something etc. The only way I can remove it by scrubbing it. Don't know how can you clean the inside of your geyser with a scrubber. With rice/sand/glass beads?

I remove the black mold the same way - by thoroughly scrubbing the surface. I have tried plenty of chemicals but nothing works without elbow grease.

Stagnant water at my home becomes smelly. Heating it up increases the smell.

Search the internet for chemicals to remove biofilm and try them. You've already tried one - hydrogen peroxide. Another common one is vinegar. It works for me to get rid of the smell but doesn't remove the slimy coating effectively.
 
chyawanprash said:
I get sewage laden dirty water 11 months in a year. Stagnant water creates a slimy layer inside the buckets, mugs etc. Internet says this could be biofilm/green algae, black mold, hydrogen-something etc. The only way I can remove it by scrubbing it. Don't know how can you clean the inside of your geyser with a scrubber. With rice/sand/glass beads?

I remove the black mold the same way - by thoroughly scrubbing the surface. I have tried plenty of chemicals but nothing works without elbow grease.
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This requires chemicals that can go after biofilm. They need time to work and depending on the chemical a working temperature.

Chlorine bleach can be used warm or less. Oyxgen bleaches work better at elevated temperatures. Hot to boiling.

chyawanprash said:
Stagnant water at my home becomes smelly. Heating it up increases the smell.

Search the internet for chemicals to remove biofilm and try them. You've already tried one - hydrogen peroxide. Another common one is vinegar. It works for me to get rid of the smell but doesn't remove the slimy coating effectively.
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I see some websites mentioning peracetic acid. This is a lot simpler than it sounds. You get it with Vanish washing powder.

The percarbonate in Vanish releases H2O2, and the catalyst it contains TAED, turns that H2O2 into peracetic acid. Helps with cleaning clothes at a lower temperature. Oxygen bleach will kill germs too. Otherwise, the H2O2 alone needs hot water to do the job and quite a lot of it to sanitise.

Try a scoop of Vanish powder in warm to hot water to remove any biofilms. If you can leave it sitting for an hour or less depending on how thick the film is.

I've used this to clean my front loader which got smelly after five years, and that is a proper biofilm. It took five applications to complete the job. No way to scrub inside the machine so you let the chemicals do the work a number of times. They will if you're patient enough.

One way to neutralise the Vanish would be to add either vinegar or citric acid after. Otherwise, it takes a few rinses to get the slime out. Though I would think with use the thing should rinse out on its own.
 
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One way of removing things inside the coils is to use a small submersible pump like a cooler pump and keep circulating some dilute citric acid water or use some diluted descaling liquid for an hour. The circulation of this water will gradually remove the bacteria. In industries they use a very dilute HCL solution that won't damage the metal and hot water for cleaning hard to reach places.
 
So I fixed the geyser and did all plumbing work all by myself..bought a plumbing wrench! No leaks only perfect fitting!
Fired the geyser this morning. Let the water run for a bucket or two. Then for first 2 buckets no smell but during 3rd round same smell started coming but intensity was 20-25% less.

We were like F*..it now lets use it as is..
 
blr_p said:
Try a scoop of Vanish powder in warm to hot water to remove any biofilms. If you can leave it sitting for an hour or less depending on how thick the film is.

I've used this to clean my front loader which got smelly after five years, and that is a proper biofilm. It took five applications to complete the job. No way to scrub inside the machine so you let the chemicals do the work a number of times. They will if you're patient enough.

One way to neutralise the Vanish would be to add either vinegar or citric acid after. Otherwise, it takes a few rinses to get the slime out. Though I would think with use the thing should rinse out on its own.
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I don't use Vanish for cleaning anything other than the clothes because it's got detergent like strong perfume and it feels slick. I like citric acid, vinegar, sodium hydroxide etc just because they feel watery. I'll try sodium percarbonate next as I want to clean the overhead tank and Vanish would leave its smell.

Thanks for this Vanish + acid trick. I anyways use citric acid in my front loader religiously - I learned that from you.
 
chyawanprash said:
I'll try sodium percarbonate next as I want to clean the overhead tank and Vanish would leave its smell.
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No peracetic acid with that only H2O2 and the minimum temperature has to be 50 degrees or more

If you could get hold of TAED somehow, a 5% mix of that with the percarbonate will do it but I don't know any sources that sell TAED in consumer amounts.
chyawanprash said:
Thanks for this Vanish + acid trick. I anyways use citric acid in my front loader religiously - I learned that from you.
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I still recommend you try vanish. And if you want percarbonate later. So we have some data on how each works

I recommend Vanish because it is easily available

I'd written some more in my previous post about citric acid but removed it as I realised citric acid isn't the best at going after biofilm. It's a great surface cleaner but in other areas
 
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I still dont get it why in the first 2 slots there's no odor while suddenly in the 3rd round it suddenly starts smelling. There's no smell/bad taste to the water nor the bucket smells!
 
Maybe the geysers has some filters which might not be cleaned? The gunk leftover might be the reason for the rotten smell.
Or somewhere around, dirt might be stuck and not visible.
 
Few things to disclose...

All of a sudden in his week geyser refused to power-on!
Obvious thing, one will take the geyser to an electrician shop suspecting coil burn, thermostats issues, power issues, fuse etc. etc.

Immersion rod was working fine though wife complained it is taking too much time to heat the water.

So this mad me think otherwise. Just to have a look, I opened the mains and found (unsure if it was neutral/live) one of the wires end connecting the point was burnt yet was still functioning.

Peeled off the burnt portion and attached freshly peeled wire to the point.

Surprisingly the geyser was back on power and this time water heating earlier than it used to.

The rotten smell slowly disappeared and now its like no rotting smell at all as if nothing happened. (I think the burnt wire caused slow heating causing some impact inside emitting the fouls smell) I could be wrong though..
 
Wasn't it mentioned in one of the above posts that a user replaced his wires and had his rotten smell go away!!

But then, this would be the last point we would think. Normally, jf the wires are burnt or in the process, we expect the unit to stop functioning. In your case, it functioned normally, so obviously we are going to look into the interiors of the geyser to check what is causing that smell.

Hopefully it's just the burnt wire producing this rotten smell and nothing else.
 
Kaleen Bhaiya said:
Wasn't it mentioned in one of the above posts that a user replaced his wires and had his rotten smell go away!!

But then, this would be the last point we would think. Normally, jf the wires are burnt or in the process, we expect the unit to stop functioning. In your case, it functioned normally, so obviously we are going to look into the interiors of the geyser to check what is causing that smell.

Hopefully it's just the burnt wire producing this rotten smell and nothing else.
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Actually the smell persisted for 2-3 days before totally vanishing...so still unsure what caused the smell...te wire or bacteria or ???
 
So the problem all along was just a burnt wire?

Thought the title said rotten egg smell but you never ever confirmed it was that kind of smell
 
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