How to disinfect your well water - Shock chlorination
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- čas přidán 6. 09. 2024
- Disinfecting your well water is very important for you to have clean drinking water. In this video, I show you how I disinfect my well. You need to have 200ppm of bleach to disinfect your well which equates to 3 pints per 100 gallons of water.
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Here's a good pipe volume calculator www.rhomarwater...
Here's a great site for well owners with tons of info. wellowner.org/
If you live in Texas, you can search your wells information here. www.twdb.texas....
We use to drill wells up here in ohio for 30 years. We use to use hth swing pool pills. We would drop 12 pills in well let sit for half hour. Then circulate water with garden hose in to well till you smell chlorine. Then go inside do something to every place you can get water. Let sit 24 hours. Run garden hose till you can't smell chlorine. Do same thing inside. If you want to help septic tank heat water to110 degrees take half cup of yeast add to hot water. Let set for 15 minutes then flush down toilet. Everything he said is true we did it a little different.
Got my water test results back today. Negative for e-coli but positive for coliform. We've had a ton of rain the last month. I'm surrounded by pasture land. Going to shock my well tomorrow just like you did. Many thanks.
This is an excellent video! It’s very thorough and easy to follow. I love how you are walking us through step by step.
Thank you 👍
I'm in Florida and I have well water and I've been reading and studying and watching videos how to disinfect my well I called up a couple of well companies that specialize in well water and they want $300 to come out and disinfect my will... Well well I went to the grocery store I bought some Clarox went to the pool store And bought some shock I'm doing it myself.... After everything that I did and follow the instructions on the video my water is beautiful smells great looks great all is good I will be doing this once a year you bet you're sweet as I will you'll take care now and listen to this man he knows what hes talking about.. God-bless and happy drinking well water again
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I have a 2500 gallon well how much would I have to use
Life saver, English isn’t my first language and I understood so “well”😊 ready to disinfect my water as a pro. Thanks for your time.
You’re welcome 😊
We have a well that feeds our spigots outside. Been dealing with a lot of iron bacteria sludge since our new pump was installed and this video has been tremendously helpful.
Awesome 👍
Interesting. I appreciate folks like you who make these videos. I had mine shocked just because we never knew when it was last done thanks to not being the original owner. Turns out our water was already fine (pulled a sample for testing pre-treatment), but I wanted to do it so we knew. I wasn't quite clear on how to flush it all out afterwards though.
Thank you for sharing how to do this. I'm reviving a well and this info is very helpful.
If you have PEX tubing for your water lines inside your house, turn off your water heater and let it cool before chlorinating your well. They say PEX tubing will last 50 years, but exposure to hot, heavily chlorinated water can damage the tubing and may significantly shorten the life of the tubing. I haven't experienced or seen this, just something I read about using PEX tubing.
For people an alternative and better sanitize is peroxide.
@@truth6600 Thank you! Can you find this at feed stores or co-ops?
Thanks for the tip Allen!
Fantastic, factual presentation. Easy to follow. I have had wells and treated them myself for over 50 years. This is the most complete and factual presentation I have seen. Great job.
Best video explanation I've seen on this. First time using well water and its been 5 months of combating the iron bacteria after a really bad Florida flood. This video saved our butt! Thank you
How do you wash your white close don’t you use chlorine and it goes to whale
Thanks so much. Just got a new property and put in a well. Had it tested and it was contaminated. Now I can do the job myself.
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Excellent video. More totally complete than I have seen it before. We have been doing ours for many years and are also on a septic system so that was good information others may not think of. Excellent! TY
Just re-watching your video to refresh my mind for another treatment.
Again, thank you fellow Texan; you have done a great job explaining the procedure clearly. Well done.
Great video. I would recommend adding the water to the bucket before the bleach so if it splashes up it's diluted
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It's actually more than that, you want add the bleach to water as to not have a high concentration that could cause vigorous exothermic reaction.
Do what you otter, add acid to water. Thank you HS chemistry.
very informative. I appreciate the measured pace of explanation. I don't process as quickly as I used to.
Here in 2022. I am also on well water (and septic tank) for 35 years now & I have never heard of shocking wells before. I live in the Willamette Valley here in Oregon (Pacific Northwest). We don't have animal farmlands nearby, they are probably at least a couple miles away, probably even more like 5 or 10. Our water also has iron bacteria but probably not coliform. We use the well water only for washing dishes, hands & showers. We stopped using it for laundry maybe 2 decades ago, but I may restart that although only use it once a month on average for the laundry. However, for potable drinking & cooking, we buy bottled water & also bring in ~10 gallons or so of city tap water in empty gallon jugs every other week from our second home at another town an hour away to this home with well water. We have not tested our water in decades & we have never had whole-house filtration (we used to have one faucet filter long ago) & our water softener broke 2 decades ago, so yeah we have been using straight unfiltered well water for that long. It's been ok, we haven't gotten sick, we're trying to save money, but it does stain the toilets & stuff, but I clean the toilets & the faucet grills every once in a while. Anyway this is nice new information for me & it makes me wonder if this is necessary or unnecessary in my scenario/situation. I am planning to get a whole-house spin-down filter trap to catch sediment/sand which we also see that in our water, so that at least that does not bog down the septic tank of accumulated sand over time, which again now has been 35 years, so I have to wonder what the potential dwindling of space volume that our septic is at now due to sand, which hopefully is still ok too.
Thank you so much for taking the time to make such a detailed video, this really helps a lot! Many blessings 🙏🏽
Thank you so much for this wonderful video! I’ve been dealing with sulfur for 5 years. I’m going to follow your instructions, which were very clear. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Thanks , Great info ! I am also having the same problem in W. Colorado at my survival training tipi camp , 7,000 ft. in canyon .No cattle, no homes near , well 7--9 yrs old , seldom use water. Only for firec safety. Students bring bottled water. ( probably the problem. I should max flush a couple times a yr. no doubt. ) There are no openings in my system for critters, etc. My hand pump gives me crystal clear, but Lab says it is NOT. The elec pump gives me red , rusty water. I have been max flushing well 24 hrs a day ! I will try your idea. Thanks! Mtn Mel , Ret USN SERE/VN.
Your presentation and procedure are exactly how it should be done. Really excellent video, excellent presentation. Refreshing to see an internet video with correct worthwhile information. I treated water for thirty years in that time I seen all kinds of wrong ways to treat water. Thanks!
Thank you very much! I really appreciate that 👍
Nice job with the wireless microphone so the audio is excellent. Also great job with the info.
Thank you
I did this to my well that smelled like rotten eggs...amazing transformation back to great water. thank you!
Great! The bleach will not only kill the bacteria but oxidize the iron, manganese and sulfur. It would be best to get a hydrogen peroxide injection system followed by an iron back washing filter tank. That's what I ended up doing and now I have perfect water. Here's some links to where I bought the system. www.cleanwaterstore.com/hydrogen-peroxide-well-water-systems/hydrogen-peroxide-proportional-flow-well-water-system-j-pro-22-110v-230v.html and the Pro-Ox 5900-BT iron filter which removes sulfur also. www.cleanwaterstore.com/pro-ox-iron-filters.html#item=FE012400&tab=tab1 Hope this helps.
that rotten egg smell might be from your hot water heater anode. IF your anode is used up the water will begin to smell bad.
@@TheJayDawgZ what's the anode... The temperature basically
@@rickynelson2217 The anode in a water heater is basically a chunk of Zinc that is screwed into the top of the tank by the manufacturer to keep the tank from rusting out. The anode is a sacrificial metal that gets dissolved instead of the tank. Most people are not aware of the anode and are not aware that it is a serviceable item.
Where is the anode located? Because I have the same problem.
That was a great video. I have to do this to my well and now I am confident that I can do this correctly! Thank you!
Great information and detailed procedure! My only question is: Now that we have meticulously and painstakingly sterilized and sanitized our entire well water system from end to end, exactly why are we re-installing scanky, old, contaminated used water filters back into our system?
Great video, THANK YOU!!! I am a new home-owner in michigan, new to well water so this is great info. My wife been freaking out about this kind of stuff.
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Thank you so much for showing me how to do this step by step! Thanks to your video I feel a lot more comfortable with having to do this myself.
Glad it was helpful! 👍
Hi Pete
Ash here from Queensland Australia. This is No. 100 of your CZcams Videos. I have been watching all of them from the beginning. Keep up the good work 👍
Thank you ☺ I've learned a lot since we moved to the country in my early videos, and still learning.
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Thank you for that side note about bleach and septic tanks. Had no clue
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But don't you use bleach in your washing machine, and that goes in your septic tank ??
@@markkulyas2418 Many people don't use bleach in washing machine if they have well/septic. If I use bleach, it's very sparingly. Additionally, good practice is to use a dry well with dedicated drainage for washing machines. A bit difficult to retrofit because you likely need to run a dedicated vent stack depending on configuration, and many homes have washing machine drain tied into other drainage so it's impossible to isolate without major surgery.
@@michaelrossley3073
Naive here. Why is a new dedicated vent stack required ? I thought I could cut the laundry room drain, reroute it and cap the old drain and just leave the old vent stack in place to do its job. It’s not venting any other drain because the laundry room is isolated beside the garage. Am I missing something?
@@Mote78 hey sorry for way late reply here. You may run into a situation where your p trap (desired) becomes an S trap (not desired/vacuum). Essentially, if you just have washing machine running into what’s called a P trap at Home Depot, the water will flow through into the lower point in the p, but because there’s nothing to break the vacuum, will almost completely pull through the length of pipe to termination. If you’re only draining laundry into dedicated drywell, probably no big, but it’s also aok to use a “sure-vent” above.
Thanks I just did this a week ago and used more shock than I needed. Such a pain in the ass. Your video is great so thanks again.
Why was it a pain????????
I'm glad to see you rinsed the casing after bleaching. Bleach will rust out casing and if you have a pitless adapter, good luck getting it apart in 10 years. Great video.
Tyler Hopaluk 👍
Great information I did not have an idea about water wheal but I will do that on my property on my cabin thanks .
It's been a bit of time since the video was made but thankyou for the information.
Thanks Pete! The video was VERY helpful. And no b.s. either.
I own a house I bought a few years ago, it was built in 1994. As far as k know the previous owner never shocked the well. I'm getting the water tested this week and I might have to do this. We are in central BC Canada and my well head is a 6 inch metal pipe with a lid bolted on, not sure how deep it is. But will probably need a lot of bleach.
I definitely learned something in this video. Thanks for sharing.
You might want to check out dechlorinators instead of draining your toilet tanks. They sell them to aquarium and pond owners. A few drops in your tank is all it would take. I use a cap full to dechlorinate a 55 gallon garbage can full of water for my backyard nature pond. Supposedly just letting the water sit for a day or two will cause the chlorine to evaporate, but that pertains to normal chlorinated tap water and I am not sure how effective that would be for the high concentration you use. Your charcoal filter also does the job. I hear that pool chlorine (12%) is better due to lack of additives used in laundry bleach. There's more in that stuff than just scent. A friend of mine has a pool cleaning business and he told me that years ago which made me want to comment just to share that tidbit. It might be more expensive, but you are fastidious in your work and it seems to be something you would want to investigate. Love your channel by the way. I am always happy to see new content from you. You have a nice presentation style that is very appealing to regular guys who just want to learn something in a relaxing and informal manner. Stormy Sounds is right about your potential, but YT is full of click bait which makes it hard to compete. I would love for you to take us on a tour of your property and share your long term plans. I find it very interesting. I also like hearing about and learning from your past experience in the tool trade. Your drill sharpening video was fantastic. It is great to learn from a person with years of experience in any field. Thank you for your hard work!
Thank you, I'll do some research on the pool chlorine, plus it might be more effective. Yes CZcams is getting very big and like you said hard to compete but I'll just keep at it. I might do a video of my property and why we moved out here but we will see :) I'm glad you like my videos. My early videos are not that great but country living is all new to me, but I would never go back to living in the rat race I lived in before. Thank you again for your kind words, I really appreciate it.
@@petebeasttexashomesteading Howdy neighbor. So first off bleach has a shelf life, older stuff will permeate (think off gassing) thru the container and become just water after a long enough period of time. So you cannot store bleach for more than about 6 months. Granulated pool shock is shelf stable for years. Also cheaper by volume than bleach. However not all pool shocks are created equal. You need to find Calcium hypochlorite, which is available in any pool section including Wally world.
RE: getting rid of chlorine; standard city water has .02 PPM of chlorine in the pipes when it's delivered to you to keep the pipes sanitized. A pool that smells just a little of chlorine will have about 5 ppm. The ways to get rid of chlorine are thru electrolysis, heat, uv exposure, oxidization or permeation. So you can just set a bucket (preferably clear) and the heat/uv/oxidization/permeation will remove the chlorine, you can speed it up by dumping it between buckets or increasing the surface area.
RE: pool chlorine, its not usually 12%, thats very low. Typical pool shock is 65% available chlorine. however that's 35% other disolvable solids. Shock typically is available in 1lb containers. So dissolve about 1/4lb in each 5 gallon bucket and youll have very strong bleach.
thanks for sharing I'm going to try it this way.
Great video, I'm in Canada so my well is a little bit different, but I can use your method just fine. Thanks
What about the affect the bleach could have on the pressure tank bladder - which is made of rubber?
Wow. In Texas your pressure tank can be outside. Guess I've been living in the north country too long.
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Im impressed with your water pressure. You must have a good pump huh?
Jack Mehoff I'm not sure what HP the pump is but it pumps the water 475 ft to my house and up 20 ft of incline.
Yeah, it looks like they knew what they were doing when they put it in.
Got to be 30 to 40 lb of water pressure in that hose.
Out here in CA we are not allowed to contaminate the aquifer with bleach. You would need to do chlorine injection at the surface into the house.
Any cast iron pipes can also add iron to your water also cat iron pipes can rust closed where you can lose water pressure. If it's before the gauge your pump works harder if it's after the gauge you won't have any water pressure in the house
Wow! Thank you for this great video Pete!! Just had well deepened and tested positive for Coliform. Will be using your method. Getting tired already 😀
Glad it was helpful! 👍
Very good tutorial! Thank you. I am new to well water systems. Been on city water for about fifty years now.
I think Lowes should be sponsoring your channel 😅
Thank you for the video very informative walkthrough
Great video, very informative. Keep up the good work!
Thank you 👍
Me and wife wife argued on opening outside faucets first. She's a know it all. I went back to your video to remind her how we'd did it 6 months ago. Even down to the small casing hole. She did buy a ventilated screw for casing head. Said it lets gas escape.
Hi thank you so much for your video do i have to bypass the bladder tank for this ??
Hi, no you don't have to bypass the pressure tank.
Septic tank question can you add a chemical like ridex back into your tank?
For some reason Bleach is still in my well. Been running pressure tank garden hose outside for 3 hours. I put 1 gallon of Disinfecting bleach in well last night. It’s 7in casing 475 feet down. Water level at 50 feet or so. Going to keep well going for now. Hopefully Clears up soon. I’ve got 50-70 psi 13 gallons a minute.
The chlorine will dissipate soon down in the well.
Thank you best explanation out of all the videos!
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Thank you for making this video brother, helped me tremendously!
Awesome 👍
Great video, best info I have watched on this subject .... Thank you!
thank you 👍
Thank you sir.
Very throughly explained. Thank you.
Thank you so much for this video I needed it
When you're running the inside faucets, etc. when the bleach is in the lines, how do you prevent that water from going into your septic?
Really great video, i did something similar years ago to my parents well pipe.
I might read up on the chlorinating the brine pellets.
My softeners manual says it degrades the pellet media.
Just an fyi.
Again. Great job.
Thanks, My water softener suggests to put a few ounces of bleach in the brine tank and do a backwash to disinfect the softener.
According to the pros I had come out today, you are using way too much bleach. They only used 1 cup of bleach for my system (in TX, 4" pipe, 220ft well). I asked why not use a couple gallons and they said if you use that much, it will keep coming back. If you use just a little, it somehow prevents the smell from coming back almost indefinitely. Who knows....?? Just figured I would share. They just finished so if I think about it, I will jump back on and comment on results several months from now.
Well?
Clear presentation. Good job!
Should mention unscented bleach at beginning alot of people dont watch whole video but great info
He did
I bought 2 new garden hoses, 2 gallons of unscented bleach & I am going to do this "re treat" my self, following your directions, then I will get a bottle from the place that tests water, and I will see what the water test will say. I will let you know when the test returns. Thanks!!
A10TOES There's coliform test kit that I use made by (LaMotte) coliform test kit that has 5 tests in the kit. I think I paid $15.00 online.
Thank You, I am having a local place check the water sample, I start flushing in about one hours, that will be bleach sitting in the well & pipe lines for 24 hrs. At least it is 37 degrees today here in Indiana, it was 31 when I put the bleach in & I about froze my tootsies off! LOL
A10TOES 😂👍
Really appreciate all the care and info you put into this video! I'm not sure what's going on with my well yet, just want to be prepared and glad I came across your video.
My water was left off for about a month and lines drained (living elsewhere and winterized the lines to not freeze). Now the water gets a weird webby looking growth in it when left to stand over night in the sink. I'll be taking a sample to get tested, and don't really know if I'll be able to get this process done if I need to, but need to do something!... Freezing temps don't make it nice.
Any recommendations?
Thanks again!
Get your water tested and find out what's in it. Then shock your well and that should take care of most anything that's in your water especially iron bacteria. I purchased a back washing water filter from the cleanwaterstore.com and it's solved all my water problems. You can contact them and they will let you know exactly what the type of backwashing filter you need.
This is the filter I purchased it's for iron and manganese. www.cleanwaterstore.com/iron-and-manganese-filters-for-well-water.html
Thank you!! Really appreciate it!!!
I believe I'll do something a bit different. ie put a drain pipe with a shut off just before the septic tank. Allow all the bleach water to flow out there until it's clean. I'm old and carrying all those 5 gallon buckets around seems a bit much. Think Jandy diverter valve.
Not all bleach is the same. They now sell types with very little chlorine. Read the back and look for the info on disinfecting. Great Vid!
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Wow that was great
A lot of maintenance & up keep
Use tablets instead of liquid, it sinks down further into the well, liquid just sits on top. In fact, even better than tablets there is stuff you can buy online that is a powder to put down there.
Thank you
I use 'HTH super shock' in the 1lb bag. Its a $4 single use bag from Wal-Mart. I was worried I was going overkill as it said it can shock 13,500 gallons. Says 54% available chlorine. Barely noticeable chlorine smell from half a bag.
use the tablets, the power dust can stick to the drop pipe and corrode the coupings. flushing water in from the top is not 100% effective.
thought for sure you were going to spill.......... w the funnel........ well done!
My well needs to be chlorinated. I was told the water has to run for four days to clear the lines. I really appreciate your video, especially taking care not to damage the septic tank. My question is what price can I expect to pay for this service to be done?
Anything special to do for electric water heater?
typically depending on your well depth and or aquifer it could take hundreds of years for ground water to hit your well.
Brandon Bentz I was thinking the same thing. Of course if his casing wasn’t sealed properly or if rainwater runoff rises above his wellhead then that changes everything.
My mother-in-law has a well at her cabin and had to shock it a couple of years back due to a long drought they had. When they finally had a lot of rain she discovered that the concrete well casing had cracked due to the dry spell. There was a lot of water seeping in through the crack.
Also from all the videos I watched this said you shouldn't allow chlorine it to get into your water softener container because it can damage the components. And I would just shut the water lines off to my toilets to keep chlorinated water from going in there in the first place and that's why they say have jugs of water for flushing.
Thank you! That was very informative.
Where do you buy the test kits? Also where do you check your water from the sink or from the well opening?
@@crystalthornton3842 You can get coliform bacteria test kit on Amazon. Just add the well water from the well to the test kit container and let it sit for the time they say and look for the change in color to know.
Thank you for the great info.
+ Question: I have purchased a house cross country. I won't be able to move in for a year. Should I do this when I visit or should I just wait till next year. Granted I will only visit once till I move next year. Hope this makes sense and any advice would be appreciated. 👍
I would wait until you move in. You can use the water when you visit to wash with but not to drink.
@@petebeasttexashomesteading cool! Thank you for the info👍👍
Great video...well done
Some recommend mixing the bleach with white vinegar to control the pH for optimal cleaning. What are your thoughts on that?
I would just stick with the bleach.
My water is already slightly acidic so you may want to check your pH. By the time you flush out the bleach I wouldn’t think your pH would remain affected very much.
Sounds strange to me...
The bleach is basic and the vinegar is acidic, and when they chemically react they will essentially neutralize each other.
More importantly, bleach and vinegar mixed will release chlorine gas. That's far from ideal.
Thanks so much. Very well done.
You should let the water circulate from the hose into the well. This circulates the same water from the house to the well over and over again. Also it's okay to let bleach run into your septic tank for a little bit. What do you think happens when you do a load of laundry.
I wash 1 load of whites once a week, so that’s 1 cup of bleach every 7 days vs. 2 gallons in a day.
Outstanding.
2x a year?
I guess I'm one with the junk in water. 20+ yrs and didn't do once. Our water is clear and good but yes black iron bacteria in toilet tanks. What can I say?
Seems though, the real bacteria is in d.c.
Great video
Thank you 👍
Amazing these people disinfect the well but never the distribution system.
Something to consider would be to use water that is boiled or purified on your final rinse because you just put the dirty coliform water back down your well after all the effort of cleaning it out
Yes that would be best, but it really won't effect the well water because it already has so much bleach in it. I just wanted to wash the bleach off the casing and wires.
Thank you
Great post, thanks.
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Should this still be performed every year if water is filtered through a UV light?
Yes. UV light doesn't do much.
Nice well :) and yes, thank you for the info.
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Doing this now hope help with the rusty water
This is only good for disinfecting the well water (killing bacteria). You would need a back washing iron filter to remove the iron (rust). Here is the link to the filter I use. www.cleanwaterstore.com/pro-ox-5900-air-iron-filters.html
My concern that it turns commode light orange n dark orange in some places. I sits in white plastic bowl overnight turns bowl iron orange
My well has a pump, and a person can climb down into the well, like 7 or 8 feet. Is it okay to just dump a few gallons of bleach water right into the well housing?
Turn your Bleach bottle so the handle is pointing downward...it doesn't splash as much...great video!
I myself I would use brass ,stainless steel or plastic no copper black pipe or galvanized
Pete: You did a good job on how to disinfect your well. Do you have a well log for your well? If so could you send me a copy of it. I am interested in seeing what they drilled through. Thanks, Chuck
Thanks, I don't have a well log. The well was drilled before I purchased the property. All I know is the well is 300ft deep and the well pump is 180ft deep and the water table is 99ft down and It's high in iron.
Pete: I think if you went to this web site you maybe able to find the well log. www.tceq.texas.gov/drinkingwater/SWAP/wells.html The reason I would like to look at it to see what kind of ground, clay, sand, gravel, bedrock if the case was grouted 20feet down. was it a drilled well or was a cable rig used. Was it just Coliform present and was E.coli present. Maybe you may find out who the driller was. This sounds like an interesting case. If you find the well log please let me know. I may have a few Ideas.
Charles Weihe I’m curious, what are the ideas. Maybe you could give a few brief scenarios.
We are almost ready to close on our new home and it has a well. Water smells like sulfur. Will shocking it get rid of that?
we just put 2 gallons in our well every spring. just dump it down why dilute it. run it until you can smell it go to bed and the next day let it run for 15 minutes and go on with our life. and just dont drink it for about a week.
What if you have a underground storage tank with the well which is what I have. Is it the came process? Or do I have to put bleach in storage tank as well. I think it's a 2000 gal tank and my well is 500 feet deep. Thanks
Great job
Thank you
And after about fourth or fifth spigot your nose is saturated with bleach, all the spigots smell like bleach, regardless of if there is bleach in the water :)