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Our water is giving off strange smell and its not sewer gas smell either. We turned the water off to house for 6 months. Moved in.. A month later this faint smell starts in master bath when shower is running. Then it moved to master sink and commode when it is flushed. It is now very strong! It has now moved to the rest of the faucets in house. It only smells when water is running and goes away after time. We woke up this morning and before letting any water go down drain, we ran water into a 5 gal bucket without letting it go down drain. It had the smell so we know it's not the drain. We are on city water and do not have a water softner. It is the cold and hot water. Our neighbors are not having this problem. The smell started like an acetone smell, then mostly went to a petroleum product smell.. like the way gasoline smells now that they started putting ethanol in it. Depending on who smells it, it has also been described as a sour clothes type smell or a earthy-organic smell. The plumber said he'd NEVER ran across anything like this. PLEASE help!!

[speedball1]

Bad smells and weird noises are the hardest to track down without being there, This sounds like contamination. How about opening up a outside hose bib? Does that smell also? I'd be drinking bottled water until I found the source.m of the smel.
You lines could be flushed with chorine but I would want to locate the cause first. Please keep me informed. Regards, Tom

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Thank you for responding speedball1. I did run 5 gals into bucket from outside and did not smell "the smell". I brought the bucket inside to see if it was a reaction from the water chemicals and something inside the house but no smell. Our water runs into our house very close to my master bath (where the smell started and is strongest) and the outside water faucet is on the opposite side of the house (under the kitchen where the smell is not as strong). We have a basement and can see that the outside faucet is run off the kitchen sink. We also have an upstairs bathroom that emits the smell also. It's the oddest thing. If you take only a cup of it and walk out of the room it smells like chlorine, but if you fill a 5 gal bucket you can smell it. The drains don't stink and the smell just seems to linger in the air for a while. We did get new carpet, but the smell started before then and has gotten worse instead of better. I called the gas company and he said it wasn't gas for sure, and that he'd never smelt anything like it. (He is going to stop by the house tomorrow just to see if we found the source because he really wants to know what it is.) The water company is testing it, but they took the sample from the outside... not the inside. They also flushed the hydrants in the area. I told them the neighbors aren't having this problem though. I have started getting a headache when I smell it and have a metallic taste in my mouth.

[speedball1]

Have you removed the aerator in the master bath sink and soaked it in bleach? Does the water smell bad when the aerator's removed.
It doesn't sound like a bacterial infestation but it keeps popping up in my mind. This time when they test them water have them take it from the faucet that smells the worst. Keep me informed, Tom

[endofrope]

I think I have found the culprit. We have been painting and had new carpet put in. The chlorine dioxide from the city water and the ethylbenzene (in carpet and paint) can make a petroleum smell. I thank you for you help. I will let you know if the smell goes away. We kept the windows open today, which we had not been doing because of the heat and humidity.

[speedball1]

God job of tracking the smell down. Please keep us informed. Tom