Water Smells Like Sulfur

[Josh Ball]

Recently bought a new condo that we have started a STR in. We had some friends go last weekend & said the water in the bathroom had a sulfur smell. We just had someone check in last night, messaged this morning saying the same thing, sulfur smell in the bathroom water. It appears to only be when nobody has been in the unit for awhile as we recently had a few stays back to back & a month long stay with no complaints.

Does anyone have any solutions or have run into this before?

[James Mc Ree]

It does come from minerals in your water and could indicate your anode rod in your water heater has been consumed. Replacing your water heater's anode rod could be a cheap solution.

I started replacing the anode rods in my water heaters with Corro-Protec powered anode rods last year. They are about $160-$180 for a 40g tank. Replacing the rod with an ordinary anode rod is much cheaper at around $25. The powered ones are advertised to protect water heaters, like anode rods, and eliminate sulfur smells. I've never had a sulfur smell, so I can't say how well they work for that. I was attracted to them for extending the water heater's life. The units come with a 20-year warranty on the anode rod.

It's best to do the replacement when you still have anode rod left, such as in a water heater that is 3-5 years old. After that, the minerals have started attacking the water heater's lining. It is difficult to open the ports to install new anode rods, and the difficulty increases as the water heater ages due to corrosion.

Corro-Protec has 2 models, one for dedicated anode ports (AO Smith) and one for inline in the hot water line (Bradford White):

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=powered+anode+rod&crid=4OB7OC...