New bathroom smells like sewer, apparently from the tub

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Mariela Pellegrini

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Hi all,
We recently had our house remodeled and built 2 new bathrooms. There is a really bad smell coming from one of the bathrooms, apparently from the tub. The more we use the bathroom, the worse it smells. We tried vinegar, etc., but it appears to be an incorrect plumbing. The contractor keeps saying it's fine.

I have attached a picture that I took from the crawl space.
The pipe on the left is the vent pipe that goes to the roof and vents outside.
The pipe next to that one is the pipe coming from the tub. This one has the p trap that connects to the long one. The long pipe is the main pipe that connects to the sewer.

The toilet is also connected (not pictured) to the main pipe to the sewer. Same thing with the sink.
There is no other vent pipe for the whole system, so the washer and dryer connects there, the other bathroom and the kitchen as well.

Is that vent connected in the wrong place?
Thanks a lot!
Mariela
 

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Crake

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I am not a plumber, just an occasional DIYer, but it appears that the vent was installed in the wrong place. The vent should be downstream of the P-trap. I am very surprised that a professional could make that mistake if what I am seeing is true.

How could a vent possible work if there is a p-trap full of water blocking it from the fixtures it is supposed to be venting? In addition your tub drain is now directly connected to your vent system with nothing to stop gases from passing through. I'm not surprised that you're smelling sewer gases.

This is such an egregious mistake I would highly recommend waiting for some other opinions as it seems unlikely that someone could have actually plumbed your drain like this. I would also double check and make sure the pipes are actually what you think they are.
 
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Mariela Pellegrini

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The vent is in the wrong location.
Your trap is siphoning dry. Any plumber would know that.
Move the vent to the downhill side of the p-trap. Wow! How funny!

Thanks for your response! Can you imagine we pay this guy to do a pretty big remodeling! I don't even want to think how many other things they did wrong! We caught this one because of the smell.... It's funny, but funny sad :(
 

Reach4

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Thanks for your response! Can you imagine we pay this guy to do a pretty big remodeling! I don't even want to think how many other things they did wrong! We caught this one because of the smell.... It's funny, but funny sad :(
Ask the person if you need to involve the law to get a refund to pay for a proper plumber.
 

Mariela Pellegrini

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I am not a plumber, just an occasional DIYer, but it appears that the vent was installed in the wrong place. The vent should be downstream of the P-trap. I am very surprised that a professional could make that mistake if what I am seeing is true.

How could a vent possible work if there is a p-trap full of water blocking it from the fixtures it is supposed to be venting? In addition your tub drain is now directly connected to your vent system with nothing to stop gases from passing through. I'm not surprised that you're smelling sewer gases.

This is such an egregious mistake I would highly recommend waiting for some other opinions as it seems unlikely that someone could have actually plumbed your drain like this. I would also double check and make sure the pipes are actually what you think they are.

We are sure the pipes are like described because when we initially reported the smell, the vent pipe was not even glued. Instead it was wrapped with that silver tape. Then the contractor said, that that was the problem. Now, that is glued, the smell is even worse, so probably there was some smell escaping through the taped vent!
 

Mariela Pellegrini

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Mostly it's the customer's fault for not asking the remodeler if they are using liencsed plumber for the job.
I'm the customer, and we did ask the contractor, and he is licensed, and we did pay much more extra for that, but thanks for your comment anyway!
 
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