Sewer gas mystery

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Bluebinky

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Not a pro, but...

Since it can be smelled inside and outside, my guess is that it is most likely a break/crack near the outside wall exit point. Is the ground soft there? Does the dirt smell bad? Possibly too deep to tell that way since there's a basement, though...

There may also be a cleanout on the upstream side (inside or out) that is broken.
 
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Let's keep this thread constructive for those that will have a similar problem, even if the original poster has jumped ship to buy a new house.

Sewage gas smell in a home is often hard for many homeowners and novices to diagnose, mostly because none of us have x-ray vision to see pipes in walls and floors.

I'm going to write this article in order, starting from least expensive and easiest to do.

Stopper block all drains. One visit to a hardware store, and come back home with a collection of rubber stoppers, and plug them all. Buy as many as you can, keep your receipt and you can refund the ones you don't use. Yes, you'll have to remove a stopper manually each time you wash your hands, but at least you can breathe without short breaths and dizzy spells.

Health is the most important here, and this will give an instant improvement to your quality of life. Finally, with a clear non-dizzy head, you, and certainly other paid professionals that won't quit on the job, can finally investigate.

Make sure all the p-traps contain water. I like my house to have p-traps that can be checked anytime without tools. I would replace all p-traps with ones that have a very large plugs that can be removed and put back on by hand, without any teflon tape. ABS is soft to cut, and cheap to glue. If a good amount of water drops out of your traps, confirm all of them contained enough water to stop sewage gases. A good thing to use is soda pop you are familiar with, so you can still smell it in the trap, or get a contrasting different smell with sewage.

If any traps empty out by suction, there is a blocked attic vent, this usually happens at the T or Y where the sink plumbing meets up to the rest of your house. Cut that off, and you will see it is full of crud. You might not be able to clean all the decades of silt dirt leaves snow ice dead birds squirrels that crawl in. Close up the repair with new ABS and install an AAV (Air Admittance Valve) for that sink. Despite all the AAV bashing, AAV's are something that will solve your problem temporarily and give you time for a permanent solution. I can install an AAV in 15 minutes in Janurary, get my health back, and then worry about tearing out the attic vent pipe in Spring. Most folks that tell you not to use AAV's usually aren't dying in sewage gases while reading this post, you are.

Now you have solved and possible venting problem and see your traps are always full, next is to check your toilets.

Remove all your toilets. Holes from missing wax is common from bad installations. That can lead to loose flanges, with entire floors missing from decades of rot. If the flange is confirmed healthy and doesn't need repairs, you're going to get new wax and reinstall your toilet.

Still got sewage? Then you have a break somewhere in the wall or ceilings. Check your attic. Vent pipes that run vertically from roofs can fracture and split. You will have to start cutting rectangles in your drywall to see your pipes. A purchased camera and leaving 3/4" holes might be less intrusive, but the only problem with cameras is that you can easily miss entire areas. Whole strips of drywall removed to see the entire pipe lets me see the whole pipe to be sure. Your health is on the line here, and repairing drywall is cheaper than buying a new house.

If everything above the sewerline checked out, now it's your concrete floor in the basement. Confirm without a doubt that process of elimination tells you do not have a problem anywhere else. A professional will camera your sewerline from your floor to city services. These guys usually aren't your regular handyman plumbers, they are used to troubleshooting commercial installs over long pipe runs. Not all old homes have clean out traps, and there will be some digging to install one. With a new basement clean out installed, at least we can close it up while you decide on how to get a contractor to rebuild your sewage to the city. I guarantee they will find a problem here, assuming you've confirmed isn't anywhere else above your basement floor.

Drain pipes in a typical residential home aren't mytified, eventually we can get a the whole picture with zero guesswork. The problem has nowhere to hide.

If you think any of the above is drastic and extreme, feel free to stop and just buy another home.
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Jon Myers

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Help! Im sick from a year of breathing low level sewer gas in my house I purchased a year ago. Built 1965. Headaches, nausea, stomach ache and more. Google symptoms of sewer gas poisoning. I have it all. After Im away from the house after awhile Im ok. Ive had countless plumbers and sewer people out to find problem. No luck. Clean out put in outdoors. Sewer people cleaned from vent pipe from roof. I think they used a camera. Not sure. Plumbers smoked 3 times. Replaced wash machine trap under the concrete. Taped vents on roof as experiment. Smell got worse inside. Can smell outdoors also. My carpenter wont work anymore here. Bad sewer smell. Handyman quit. Bad smell. He feels sick here. One plumber smelled it when he got out of his truck from the street. Its outside too. Not many plumbers smell it as low level, so nothing is wrong...They put extensions on the vent pipe up to 3 feet tall for another experiment. No luck. The only time the fowl odor stopped was when the wash machine trap was being replaced. Once water run from machine to new pipes smell returned.
Floor drain trap and pipes under concrete is all I can think of thats left? Im in process of moving out. I cant take it anymore and no way to stop it. I took down the duct work and removed furnace as I thought this was the source. I hired someone to install a furnace. Coil nasty. He put the furnace in the basement and worked awhile. The next day he said he was coming to back to pick up his furnace. And away he and the furnace went. Then I hired two other hvac companies to rehang my old clean duct work and they quit because they were overcome and couldnt concentrate in the basement. So I have no heat. I have a carbon monoxide detector and had the gas company out. Had my blood tested to be sure it wasnt CO.
Do I need to jack hammer up the pipes and drain under the concrete and replace tap? Trap is not ever dry. I put water in it everyday. I measured water in basement trap before wash machine trap replaced and it was about 10" after about 6". Im moving next week because of the problem. I cant sell the house now.
Thanks for any suggestions

▶ Show quoted text
I went to a house back in 96 with a sewer gas problem. After alot of time pulling toilets and plugging drains and filling sewer main with water with no reduction in gas smell I tried to think outside the box. The house was located in a kind of depression with a high bank to one side with tall pine trees. The smell was strongest at certain times of the day, at early morning and evening. Come to find out it was the breeze and the way it circulated causing a down draft coming off the roof and slipping into the windows. The breeze would blow just right to do this in the morning and evening! Go figure. I put inline diaphragm vents on the vent pipes on the roof and all was good.
I hope this helps Lin
 

Lyn12

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I am sorry folks but I think I chased her away.....
she sort of lost it on me for saying it might be all in her head..

sorry...
Yes. You did chase me away by the comment. I'm back to report I've had all the plumbing redone now by a master plumber. Including taking out the cast iron leaky pipes under the concrete in the basement. And had it air tested by an environmental company to prove to the plumbers that have no sense of smell that sewer gas was really there. Results came back high for sewer gas! Removed chimney stack on roof as I thought maybe sewer gas coming out of roof vent not too far away going in down chimney. And the house still reeks of sewer gas! I moved out to a furnished apartment. The house sits empty. I found out there have been 8 owners in 10 years and several died in the house.

The only pipes not replaced are outside in the front yard to the street. A smoke test did show and smell smoke coming through the ground in the front yard not to far from the house. And a camera did show some problems.

Certainly there has to be a solution to this problem!!! Any ideas appreciated. I wonder if its the sewer stack on roof blowing air in somehow backdrafting...Everything has been tested. I smell sewer gas outside on the back porch and in the front yard sometimes. I'm hiring an engineer tomorrow. And yes this is totally crazy!!!
 
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Smooky

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Why don’t you sell it? If the house has had 8 different buyers in 10 years, it has something good going for it. I would advertise the place as a nice little fixer upper. If the walls are still gutted you could say it has an open floor plan and many plumbing up grades. Some house flipper will be all over that.
 

Lyn12

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Why don’t you sell it? If the house has had 8 different buyers in 10 years, it has something good going for it. I would advertise the place as a nice little fixer upper. If the walls are still gutted you could say it has an open floor plan and many plumbing up grades. Some house flipper will be all over that.
Ive spent way too much on it to sell for nothing and lose so much money. I paid the going rate as a finished move in ready home inspected house! Not flipper price. Its had so many owners because the house is full of poisonous sewer gas. They get sick and die in it. But if I cant get the sewer gas stopped I will have to sell at a huge loss.
 

Reach4

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The only pipes not replaced are outside to the street. A smoke test did show and smell smoke coming through the ground in the front yard not to far from the house. And a camera did show some problems.
Even the sewer pipes under the basement floor are replaced? Sounds like your next step is replacing the sewer in the yard at least to the sidewalk. Is that a clay sewer? They will install an outside cleanout while doing the work. Not cheap. I figure you have numbers already.

It seems to me to make sense to get the sewer from the house isolated from the outside sewer (I hope there is a good place to inflate a test ball) and repeat the smoke test.

Just thinking... I am not a plumber.
 

Lyn12

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Even the sewer pipes under the basement floor are replaced? Sounds like your next step is replacing the sewer in the yard at least to the sidewalk. Is that a clay sewer? They will install an outside cleanout while doing the work. Not cheap. I figure you have numbers already.

It seems to me to make sense to get the sewer from the house isolated from the outside sewer (I hope there is a good place to inflate a test ball) and repeat the smoke test.

Just thinking... I am not a plumber.
I dont think the smell is from leaking from pipes in the front yard. The worse smell is in the back of the house and there are no pipes back there. Just the vent stack on the roof. I had a cleanout in front yard put in last summer. Not cheap. But yes the sewer gas is backing up from the main sewer under the street up and out the vent stack and probably blowing back in the house. It's difficult! If disconnected the sewer pipe from the house the smell would be gone. But no water then. The pipes are cast iron.
 
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Smooky

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Sometimes the bottom will rot out of the cast iron pipe and it will cause the problem you are talking about. If the pipes are buried the odor will come up through the floor. Were the cast iron pipes replaced ?
 

Lyn12

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Sometimes the bottom will rot out of the cast iron pipe and it will cause the problem you are talking about. If the pipes are buried the odor will come up through the floor. Were the cast iron pipes replaced ?
The cast iron pipes have been replaced in the basement
 
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I've had all the plumbing redone now by a master plumber. Including taking out the cast iron leaky pipes under the concrete in the basement.
Is that a 100% DWV refit, including all the ones hidden in walls, joists, in the attic, and the connection at the roof?

Some homeowners think just doing the visible stuff in the basement is "all the plumbing".

I had a case once where a deteriorated vertical that was passing from basement to roof had glue seperation in-between. Instead of tearing open drywall, we let it drop into the basement from the ceiling.

It fell apart by gravity, there was no glue left, and it was fun to see what they used before they invented ABS, it was a very strange bakelite sort of material. Short 5 foot sections glued all the way to the top.
 
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Lyn12

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Is that a 100% DWV refit, including all the ones hidden in walls, joists, in the attic, and the connection at the roof?

Some homeowners think just doing the visible stuff in the basement is "all the plumbing".

I had a case once where a deteriorated vertical that was passing from basement to roof had glue seperation in-between. Instead of tearing open drywall, we let it drop into the basement from the ceiling.

It fell apart by gravity, there was no glue left, and it was fun to see what they used before they invented ABS, it was a very strange bakelite sort of material. Short 5 foot sections glued all the way to the top.
I'm not sure what DWV refit is but the walls are open and everything pressure tested and smoked
 

Lyn12

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Well , I am sorry .....I just made an educated guess...

I am willing to bet that all of the plumbers that have dealt with
your problem have taken their money and ran.....fast.....

maybe I am wrong and you need to just re-plumb the house from the
street in with new PVC especially if you are really wanting to sell the house.....


good luck.
 

Lyn12

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If you have a basement deep sewer, you can have a running trap installed in the concrete as the sewer leaves the building
by the final clean out..... they are called running traps and basically keep any and all sewer gas from the main from
even entering the home..... they used to be real popular back 75 years ago and in older parts of some eastern
cities you can run into them once in a while....
 

Master Plumber Mark

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Yes. You did chase me away by the comment. I'm back to report I've had all the plumbing redone now by a master plumber. Including taking out the cast iron leaky pipes under the concrete in the basement. And had it air tested by an environmental company to prove to the plumbers that have no sense of smell that sewer gas was really there. Results came back high for sewer gas! Removed chimney stack on roof as I thought maybe sewer gas coming out of roof vent not too far away going in down chimney. And the house still reeks of sewer gas! I moved out to a furnished apartment. The house sits empty. I found out there have been 8 owners in 10 years and several died in the house.

The only pipes not replaced are outside in the front yard to the street. A smoke test did show and smell smoke coming through the ground in the front yard not to far from the house. And a camera did show some problems.

Certainly there has to be a solution to this problem!!! Any ideas appreciated. I wonder if its the sewer stack on roof blowing air in somehow backdrafting...Everything has been tested. I smell sewer gas outside on the back porch and in the front yard sometimes. I'm hiring an engineer tomorrow. And yes this is totally crazy!!!


you have come back for more information.......well ok then



Either you install a new sewer line onto the home all the way out to the street or you try to find someone to install an epoxy liner in the sewer liner...... If you found issues in the yard that is all that you can do......
also you could install a backflow protector in the front yard or in the basement
and maybe install a running trap

good luck
 

Lyn12

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you have come back for more information.......well ok then



Either you install a new sewer line onto the home all the way out to the street or you try to find someone to install an epoxy liner in the sewer liner...... If you found issues in the yard that is all that you can do......
also you could install a backflow protector in the front yard or in the basement
and maybe install a running trap

good luck
 

Lyn12

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I believe that the sewer gas is coming from the 2 sewer vent stacks on the roof. I can smell the sewer gas everywhere outside. The front yard, backyard, side of house is blanketed and sitting in car on the street in front of house can smell. It so gross! I put a charcoal filter on one vent and it did not help. Then put 4 foot pcv pipe extention on the other one. I can't tell yet if that did anything yet house is so full of gas it might be coming out the open windows. Ordered another charcoal filter coming later in the week.
I think that the wind currents inversion drop the gas staight down to the ground and through open basement window and other open windows and wafting all over the place, instead of going up into the atmosphere. Gas being heavier than the air.
The city has checked evrything out and said sewer positive flow and ok. Nothing they can do.
 
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