Gottso
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I will try to keep this post short, however to explain the situation and what I have had done so far, it will teeter on the unabridged side of the fence.
I moved into my house 6 years ago and have had sewer odor from pretty much day one. Reason I have "dealt" with it was because it is pretty inconsistent and random, until this past week, where it has been pretty frequent and unbearable.
Back in the beginning, I called the town to come out and check what they are responsible for. Saw the trucks outside on the block, after an hour, they knocked on my door and said everything on their end is kosher and that was that. I had a few plumbers in for unrelated issues and they all kind of gave a different answer as to what it can be.
Fast forward to this week and some perusing of the Google, I read up on smoke testing, called a guy to come out and was hoping to pinpoint this leak. Luckily, the smell was out in full force when the guy was here so he could experience it. It's never a good thing when a professional that specializes in such leaks says "wow, that smell is horrendous!".
After a few min of the smoke test, smoke was coming out from under my basement sub floor into my laundry room. The laundry room is unfinished and doesn't have a sub floor. In that room the main stack goes directly into the concrete slab and out to the street; there is no house trap. I was hoping the smoke was coming from above the slab for an 'easier' fix, but alas, no such luck. I opened my access panel to my crawl space and we saw smoke coming from atop where a cinder block meet's the floor above...however, there are NO pipes up there at all.
So what the guy told me was.....somewhere under my subfloor is a leak and it is coming back along the pipe since the soil most likely isn't packed tight and it's taking the path of least resistance. That explained the smoke coming back into my laundry room. The smoke in my crawl space, which is 14 feet from where the stack goes into the ground was explained as a leak under the block and the smoke was just venting up through the cinder block holes.
He then ran a camera through the piping and thankfully, it was in 'good shape'. I was expecting to see some crushed sections since it is outside as well, but everything seemed to be in good working order, visually. He also went outside and saw that the manhole cover that is a house down from mine has too many holes drilled in the top and told me that something odd is going on around my house. He was genuinely as confused as I am about all of this.
So...it was suggested that I get into the crawl space and dig down the pipe and visually check each connection of where the sections join together, especially where the PVC meets case iron under my front yard.
Since the smell is so sporadic and digging down 5-6 feet in a 3 high and 12ft long crawl is worse than looking for a needle in a haystack, I was eyeballing getting my pipe, from where it enters the concrete slab out to the street relined with epoxy.
I guess what I am looking for is some advice as to if this is right direction to head. I would hate to spend $2-3k on a lining and to have the odor still show up. The township will most likely not take any responsibility for anything and my other thought of having a house trap install is useless since the smoke is further out from where the stack enters the ground. The rest of the house was fine btw with its traps and connections.
Thanks for reading this and appreciate any advice offered.
I moved into my house 6 years ago and have had sewer odor from pretty much day one. Reason I have "dealt" with it was because it is pretty inconsistent and random, until this past week, where it has been pretty frequent and unbearable.
Back in the beginning, I called the town to come out and check what they are responsible for. Saw the trucks outside on the block, after an hour, they knocked on my door and said everything on their end is kosher and that was that. I had a few plumbers in for unrelated issues and they all kind of gave a different answer as to what it can be.
Fast forward to this week and some perusing of the Google, I read up on smoke testing, called a guy to come out and was hoping to pinpoint this leak. Luckily, the smell was out in full force when the guy was here so he could experience it. It's never a good thing when a professional that specializes in such leaks says "wow, that smell is horrendous!".
After a few min of the smoke test, smoke was coming out from under my basement sub floor into my laundry room. The laundry room is unfinished and doesn't have a sub floor. In that room the main stack goes directly into the concrete slab and out to the street; there is no house trap. I was hoping the smoke was coming from above the slab for an 'easier' fix, but alas, no such luck. I opened my access panel to my crawl space and we saw smoke coming from atop where a cinder block meet's the floor above...however, there are NO pipes up there at all.
So what the guy told me was.....somewhere under my subfloor is a leak and it is coming back along the pipe since the soil most likely isn't packed tight and it's taking the path of least resistance. That explained the smoke coming back into my laundry room. The smoke in my crawl space, which is 14 feet from where the stack goes into the ground was explained as a leak under the block and the smoke was just venting up through the cinder block holes.
He then ran a camera through the piping and thankfully, it was in 'good shape'. I was expecting to see some crushed sections since it is outside as well, but everything seemed to be in good working order, visually. He also went outside and saw that the manhole cover that is a house down from mine has too many holes drilled in the top and told me that something odd is going on around my house. He was genuinely as confused as I am about all of this.
So...it was suggested that I get into the crawl space and dig down the pipe and visually check each connection of where the sections join together, especially where the PVC meets case iron under my front yard.
Since the smell is so sporadic and digging down 5-6 feet in a 3 high and 12ft long crawl is worse than looking for a needle in a haystack, I was eyeballing getting my pipe, from where it enters the concrete slab out to the street relined with epoxy.
I guess what I am looking for is some advice as to if this is right direction to head. I would hate to spend $2-3k on a lining and to have the odor still show up. The township will most likely not take any responsibility for anything and my other thought of having a house trap install is useless since the smoke is further out from where the stack enters the ground. The rest of the house was fine btw with its traps and connections.
Thanks for reading this and appreciate any advice offered.