It's not bacteria that react with the anode rods. It's more likely the naturally occurring sulfates that are in your water that become hydrogen sulfide gas in your water heater. It could be that you have the hydrogen sulfide in your water and the heat just causes it to exit the water to the air where you can smell it. If you have hydrogen sulfide in your cold water as well, that could be caused by bacteria. You need to get your water tested to know for sure. Take 1- liter samples of your cold and hot water to a local independent lab to determine sulfur, sulfates, hydrogen sulfide, iron, hardness, pH, TDS. Ask the lab how to collect the samples to ensure accurate results. Then you can determine your best course of action because you will knur where your problem is. If it is purely a hot water hubby the powered anode is probably a good solution. However, the most reliable solution will likely be to remove the sulfur compounds from your water. Switching to an electric water heater will not affect the problem at all.

Thank you so much for the suggestion, I'll contact a water testing lab. We had a basic test done (basically, they tested for e coli bacteria and didn't find any), but nothing as involved as the one you're suggesting.

Take out the anode rod. We had the same "rotten egg" problem and just removed it. Didn't buy the other rod to replace it and it worked just fine.
Kathy G in MI

The anode is there for a reason. Simply removing it, while it may stop the rotten egg smell, will also cause your water heater to corrode and fail much faster than it should.

we had the same problem in an old house we bought, and the inspector sid it was because of a magnesium rod in the tank, they took it out and the smell was gone, it was a rental so i guess we didnt care if it failed sooner than it should s it was not our responsiblity to replace it, it was the companiew and i was happy to have the smell gone!

We bought a house on well water and had the same problem. After many discussions like yours (and considering removing the anode rod), we had the water tested and found very high iron and sulfur in our water. A device called The Iron Curtain filter installed between the well and the softener solved our problem completely. I highly recommend it.

I agree with aliceinwonderland the anode rod is there for a reason. I have removed many for customers and it does take care of the smell most of the time, but there is a serious problem with the well water that needs to be addressed. The water could be unsafe and you should have it tested by a profesional. sulfur, sulfates, hydrogen sulfide, iron, hardness, pH, TDS are all correct test to have done. Your local health dept. will also teat it for you.

We have city water and had the same problem when we moved into our house-- cold water was fine, hot water smelled like sulfur or rotten eggs. The water dept tested for water safety and other minerals and everything came out well within spec. Since no one else was having the problem it was pretty much narrowed down to something in the house.

We assumed it was the old oil fired hot water heater which wasn't working right to begin with. We got a new Buderus indirect hot water heater (which I *highly* recommend) that has a powered magnesium anode. As the installer said, it's better to replace that than the tank.

Anyway, the new hot water heater didn't immediately fix the problem. Heater installer recommended running the water very hot (150ish) for a few weeks and making sure it runs through all the faucets.

That did the trick. The smell gradually disappeared after about a month of normal use.

It could be a lot of things. That worked for us.