need your plumbing expertise!

[brodiesmama]

My husband and I bought our house almost one year ago. A few days after moving in we noticed a strange smell from the laundry room (1st house) so we called our local gas company. The guy they dispatched said it was sewer gas, our drain was dry and to add water. Simple enough, I did and the smell went away.

Now this happens quite frequently, out of habit I now just pour water down the drain to make sure its full. But I haven't done it lately (holiday season!) and today our entire house smelled like sewer gas I poured water down and the smell has finally gone away. The last time it smelled badly was on a very very windy day. (wind warnings issued and all)

Now, my husband has gone up on the roof and checked that vent and its clear. He checked a bunch of pipes around the laundry room and to bathrooms. All clear.

What should we be looking for next? Is it because our furnace does not have a fresh air intake? (on the to do list) or what are some things we can try and look for?

Thanks in advance for all of your input!

 

[Jadnashua]

Well, I'm not a pro, but from what I read, there are two reasons for a trap to dry out - lack of use, it evaporates (are you in the desert? ), or it get sucked dry (siphoned) because of an improperly vented fixture.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[brodiesmama]

LOL not in the desert! But the siphoning is a possibility, by fixture what do you mean exactly?

 

[hj]

odor

From your description it appears you have done the necessary thing by pouring water into the drain pipe. If it is not used then it has to be done fairly frequently. The frequency depends on a lot of variables so it you do it once a week, even during the holiday periods, you should eliminate the odor. On a windy day, all bets are off, because the wind can pick up the odors from the pipe on the roof and circulate them almost anywhere.

 

[brodiesmama]

The drain I pour the water down is in the floor of the laundry room. In retrospect there are a few infrequently used drains in our house, 2 bathroom sinks and a laundry room sink...should I occassionally be pouring water down them too? Could their rare use be contributing to the problem?

 

[Terry]

Trap primers

If this were a commercial floor drain, a trap primer would be required to keep water in the trap.

 

[hj]

odor

[ In retrospect there are a few infrequently used drains in our house, 2 bathroom sinks and a laundry room sink...should I occassionally be pouring water down them too? Could their rare use be contributing to the problem?[/QUOTE]

It is not a case of "could it be part of the problem", but rather it IS a part of the problem. Yes, they should also have water put into them. One common way to tell if it is part of the problem is to lsiten at the drain while someone flushes a nearby toilet. If you can hear the sound of the water in the drain, the trap is dry and odors are coming into the house. Unused showers and bathtubs are usually the most common items which have this problem.

 

[brodiesmama]

Wow! Thank you all so much! I never ever would have guessed that the unused drains were causing the laundry room floor drain to empty! Thank Terry I'm going to show my hubby that diagram.

Time to go pour some water down the drains!

 

[brodiesmama]

Well I religiously ran water daily to all the sinks not getting much use. Unfortunately 2 days ago the smell started again and lasted about 2 hours. *sigh*

Our house is old er (1955) and when the previous owners were doing some renos they put a sink in the master bedroom...no full bathroom jsut a sink?! LOL bizarre. Anyway the building inspector mentioned it wasn't done properly and we shouldn't use it. We've been procrastinating but have every intention of taking this sink out! could this bad plumbing job be the cause of our woes?

 

[Phatbrain]

Fine Homebuilding Forum

Brodiesmama,

This topic of stinky stuff has come up often on the Fine Homebuilding online forum. You might ask there as well.

http://forums.taunton.com/tp-breaktime/

As I learned of this Plumbing forum there, giving them a plug only seems fair.

Phat

 

[hj]

sink

Whether it is the source of the odor or not depends on how it was "not installed properly". It would have to have been very badly installed to be the source of the odor, however.

 

[tao_of_howe]

Sink

I would try keeping the drain closed on the bedroom sink, and see if that helps.

 

[brodiesmama]

We do have a plug in the sink, and my husband had turned the water off for it too. The smell never emits from there its alwys from the laundry room ?!

By not properly installed, its hard to say what I mean...all the gurgling if we use the washing machine comes from there. We're going to try and take it out this weekend completely and cap it off.

Thanks for the link I'll go check it out!