powtothemoon
New Member
We just bought a 13-year-old condo in the Seattle area. The bathrooms look to be renovated in the past couple years with relatively new fixturing. There is a big soaking tub in the master bath (one of the selling points of the condo for us). Its a big fiberglass bathtub with shower and faucet one end, and then the drain and overflow towards the middle length-wise. The overflow has the words CLEANOUT stamped on it.
On the day we moved in, I took a long hot bath. Afterwards, I noticed the bathroom smelled...odd. My husband couldn't smell it and took a bath himself a couple hours later. That night, it was strong enough that he woke me up at 1am to tell me that he could smell it, too. We hadn't smelled it before we moved in and we had the place inspected beforehand, including running the water a bit, before we bought.
It smells very musty, but strong. It doesn't smell like typical "musty basement" to me, but considerably worse. It doesn't smell overtly like poo, though.
I had a plumber come in the next day to investigate, in part because I'm not familiar with the scent of sewer gas vs bad hot water heater (ours is as old as the condo) vs mold and thought he could at least differentiate, if not fix the problem. He said he couldn't smell anything at all, and then didn't do anything other than tell us to try some enzyme cleaners, leave the very strong smell of cigarettes in the condo, and charge us $100.
Enzyme cleaners didn't work. We cleaned all the hair out of the drain (there was a lot). We did many rounds of baking soda + vinegar (4-5?) in the drain and one in the overflow. It seemed to help while we were doing it, but then the smell would come back soon as soon as we stop running water. It doesn't seem to get much better or worse if we run the bathroom fan. It does seem to get a little better if we plug the bathtub drain, but not always. Bathtub drains just fine with no glug-glug-glugs. Toilet in that bathroom doesn't "glug" either, as far as we can tell and seems to be seated absolutely rock solid.
There is a second full bathroom that shares the wall with this one that doesn't smell. We also have sinks nearby (just outside the bathtub/toilet room) that don't have a problem. Kitchen sink, dishwasher and clothes washer: no problems.
This has been going on a week. The only two things we know help the smell at this point are: actively running the water into the tub and opening the master bedroom window and airing the place out.
My questions are:
1) Is there a way to tell for sure that its sewer gas?
2) Could the fact that the bathtub drain says CLEANOUT have anything to do with it? Does a cleanout go to a p-trap, or is it on the sewer side of the p-trap? I can't find diagrams online -- or even information about cleanouts also being overflow drains -- and am wondering if that may be the culprit? Any ideas on what I should do to figure that out?
3) Any general troubleshooting tips?
My next step is to try to concentrate the smell in the bathroom as much as possible (shut doors, open drain) and call in another plumber for a second opinion...
NOTE: I am not sure if this is important or not, so I'll add it: the condo building is on a hill and contains 6 units; ours is one of two on the bottom/basement-ish floor. The back wall of our condo is (we think) dirt, while one side and front is exposed with big, beautiful windows. Essentially -- we're in a kind of more-exposed-than-usual walkout basement. The whole building is on a pretty big hill with wetlands below. The bathroom in question is in the far interior corner of the condo such that it shares one wall with the other walk-out-basement condo in the building, and one wall with the dirt.
On the day we moved in, I took a long hot bath. Afterwards, I noticed the bathroom smelled...odd. My husband couldn't smell it and took a bath himself a couple hours later. That night, it was strong enough that he woke me up at 1am to tell me that he could smell it, too. We hadn't smelled it before we moved in and we had the place inspected beforehand, including running the water a bit, before we bought.
It smells very musty, but strong. It doesn't smell like typical "musty basement" to me, but considerably worse. It doesn't smell overtly like poo, though.
I had a plumber come in the next day to investigate, in part because I'm not familiar with the scent of sewer gas vs bad hot water heater (ours is as old as the condo) vs mold and thought he could at least differentiate, if not fix the problem. He said he couldn't smell anything at all, and then didn't do anything other than tell us to try some enzyme cleaners, leave the very strong smell of cigarettes in the condo, and charge us $100.
Enzyme cleaners didn't work. We cleaned all the hair out of the drain (there was a lot). We did many rounds of baking soda + vinegar (4-5?) in the drain and one in the overflow. It seemed to help while we were doing it, but then the smell would come back soon as soon as we stop running water. It doesn't seem to get much better or worse if we run the bathroom fan. It does seem to get a little better if we plug the bathtub drain, but not always. Bathtub drains just fine with no glug-glug-glugs. Toilet in that bathroom doesn't "glug" either, as far as we can tell and seems to be seated absolutely rock solid.
There is a second full bathroom that shares the wall with this one that doesn't smell. We also have sinks nearby (just outside the bathtub/toilet room) that don't have a problem. Kitchen sink, dishwasher and clothes washer: no problems.
This has been going on a week. The only two things we know help the smell at this point are: actively running the water into the tub and opening the master bedroom window and airing the place out.
My questions are:
1) Is there a way to tell for sure that its sewer gas?
2) Could the fact that the bathtub drain says CLEANOUT have anything to do with it? Does a cleanout go to a p-trap, or is it on the sewer side of the p-trap? I can't find diagrams online -- or even information about cleanouts also being overflow drains -- and am wondering if that may be the culprit? Any ideas on what I should do to figure that out?
3) Any general troubleshooting tips?
My next step is to try to concentrate the smell in the bathroom as much as possible (shut doors, open drain) and call in another plumber for a second opinion...
NOTE: I am not sure if this is important or not, so I'll add it: the condo building is on a hill and contains 6 units; ours is one of two on the bottom/basement-ish floor. The back wall of our condo is (we think) dirt, while one side and front is exposed with big, beautiful windows. Essentially -- we're in a kind of more-exposed-than-usual walkout basement. The whole building is on a pretty big hill with wetlands below. The bathroom in question is in the far interior corner of the condo such that it shares one wall with the other walk-out-basement condo in the building, and one wall with the dirt.