Considering having a plumber examine my vent stacks. Yes or no?

[Gramps]

The symptoms:
A basement shower has backed up 2 times in the last 6 months and cleared by a plumber 2times in a branch line., most recently last week. Gurgling sounds happened during the backup. I am currently going through a bio-clean treatment after the plumber left last week. I have been using bio-clean for about 6 days now in the branch line. I have not used the (6) fixtures associated with this branch line as i am bio cleaning them.

In the main floor kitchen sink, (one of the 6 fixutres) i started noticing a slight rotten egg smell this morning after 6 days of not using it. It was still there this evening. I poured some water down the drain without looking to see the water level. (i forgot to look).

I wonder if all of these problems could be a symptom of a blocked sol pipe that is used by these 6 fixtures. The flow of water going down these fixtures over the last few months appear to be okay. The flow is usually pretty quick.
I am considering calling them to come to scope the sol pipe(only if you guys recommend it)

Could a blocked sol pipe be responsible for these issues? I am debating whether tho scope the sol pipe or not. Should i get htem to look?
-gramps

 

[Gramps]

rotten egg smell is coming from sink again this morning
I checked the water level in the trap, and it seemed to be fine. I am curious where such a smell could be coming from.
any thoughts? Please help!

 

[Sponsor]

 

[CountryBumkin]

No, don't waste your money on having the vents checked. A clogged vent won't result in no drainage. The vent is there so the traps don't get siphoned dry. If you want to have a Plumber come out, have him rout out the drain line - or put an inspection camera down the line.

Which P-trap did you check (all)?

 

[Gramps]

Yeah,
I really noticed the smell when i put my head in the sink and smell the drains (2 sinks with 1 trap). I wonder if the Bio-clean is eating something in there that is causing the smell. I have not flushed the water out in days in any fixture exept for bio clean treatments. (i was planning on running all the fixtures tonight to clear the system) I am at a loss. The other 2 upstairs fixtures upstairs smelled okay. It was difficult to tell in the basement for the toilet, but the 2 basement fixures were okay.

I had drain company look at it last week after my feeble attempt to snake it. It appeared as though the blockage was cleared (basement toilet), but there was some buildup on the walls as we saw on the camera. Not alot of buildup but enough to warrant a cleaning from them at a cost of over $1000. Before I do that, i wanted to try bio-clean.
I bought some bio-clean and started using it every night. I have not used these fixtures during this time for maximum effectiveness.

The P trap is in the kitchen on the first floor directly above the basement toilet. In the basement, the toilet is off as did not install it back yet as that will happen tonight. I used aluminum tape to cover the toilet flange and it worked quite well. I also noticed this morning that the tape did not stick well. Sometimes that can happen if the flange was wet when i do my bio clean treatemnts. this morning, i wiped down the flange and I put some new tape.

Can a smell from the basement travel upstairs like that?

 

[CountryBumkin]

I would say, yes, the smell can travel to upstairs. The air flow in homes from air leakage and hvac system can do some strange things.
You could light off a "smoke stick" in the basement to see where the air (smells) are going https://inspectusa.com/smoke-emitte...ebase&osCsid=a598123c48bac761d07709ab40186e32
but I would just reinstall the toilet run the bio-clean through the pipes and see what happens.

 

[Reach4]

The P trap is in the kitchen on the first floor directly above the basement toilet.

How about a photo of that trap and connected pipes that go to the wall/floor?

If you cover the sink with a piece of plastic, you could isolate what is coming up through that drain. Sniff under the plastic after a while. That will tell you if the smell is from that drain or elsewhere.

 

[Gramps]

i found out some information that should be useful to members of this forum

This is about the smell and the bio clean product and the rotten egg smell. This is just one scenario, but i hope it will help someone else.

The smell which definitely smelled like sulpher dioxide was most pungent when i stuck my head inside the sink. the smell was clearly coming from there. cleaning the sink pipes with a scrub brush (it is a double sink). The smell "released" as i disturbed some of the sludge by cleaning it and removing it. I have experienced this once before. That was canoeing in a shallow lake. We periodically had to get out of the canoe and pull by walking in the shallow lake as the water was so shallow. As we disturbed the "muck" by walking in the bog, the same smell was released.

My hypothesis What i think was happening was:
1. By not running the water for days, it is possible something down there began to grow,
or more likely
2. The bio clean product was beginning to break down some of it's bonds to the pipe, and by doing so, releasing the smell from the sludge just as i had experienced in the canoe trip. i will know tomorrow for sure. This could have been an indicating it was working well.

I scoped the branch lines using a cheap 1/2" snake with a $40 endoscope attached with electrical tape from amazon through a toilet flange. Surprisingly this worked well. I would have taken pictures, but it was messy. Sufficed to say the pipes were not squeeky clean but definitely much cleaner than last week. Proper water flow has been restored. I am frankly quite surprised that it worked this well. This was 6 days x 24 hours = 144 continues hours of bio clean to reach this point and about 50 doses it total for 6 fixtures. I can confirm that what others have said in this forum. It works, but it takes patience and aggressive treatment, following the instructions set by the manufacturer. This saved me about $1.5k.

I would like to thank everyone here for the input.
Cheers
-gramsps