New house, shower drain stinks

[KJones2012]

Help! I moved into a brand new house last year and already the master bathroom shower drain has sewer smells to the extent I can smell it in the bedroom. When I remove the drain cover I can see water in the pipe. The drain cover is not screwed into any assembly, just sits on top, there is blackish/brownish gunk where the drain cover sits. The construction plumber just says too bad, but it doesn't seem like a shower should stink before a year when only one person uses it 3-4 times a week. Is there a better shower drain I could install? Thanks so much, KJ

 

[Smooky]

If you can see water in the trap it might be something else. Have you tried to sniff around the base of the toilet to see if it is coming from there or the sink etc. Take a picture of the shower drain of what you are talking about. A picture of the sink plumbing might be helpful.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[KJones2012]

If you can see water in the trap it might be something else. Have you tried to sniff around the base of the toilet to see if it is coming from there or the sink etc. Take a picture of the shower drain of what you are talking about. A picture of the sink plumbing might be helpful.

Wow - thanks for the quick reply. Here's a picture of the drain "guts". I didn't include the cover, but it does not screw in. The smell definitely comes from the shower. It is a ProFlo, I could not find any number. It is also the first drain I've had that is lower than the floor of the shower.

 

[Smooky]

It is either broken or a part is missing. Is there a threaded section where something could be screwed in?

The part that is labeled “Shower drain strainer body” I think is what is missing. The one you have may not be exactly like this one but I bet it is similar.

 

[Jadnashua]

Can't tell for sure, but often, there's a flange that clamps to the shower pan to make a seal. Some of them just use a gasket between the pan and the drainage pipe (sort of looks like that may be what yours is). If, for some reason, it's leaking around the drain pipe, you may have rot beneath the pan. Have you noticed any hint of moisture in the ceiling below?

Unless a drain gets siphoned dry, there's usually no good reason on that type of shower pan to smell. You could take a bottle brush and scrub the insides of the pipe a bit. If the vent was missing or incorrectly installed, it is possible that it could be siphoned dry, and then you'd be subject to sewer gasses, but that's not the case if there's water visible in the trap.

If the seam between the walls and the pan were not done correctly, moisture could be getting through the joint, and again, rot behind the walls.

 

[KJones2012]

Thanks for the tips. I'm going to clean the junk off the drain assembly to get a clearer picture. I hope that identifies whether it is the drain or the piping - and I sure hope it is not the drain. The links will help a lot.

 

[Reach4]

It seems to me that you could put a test plug into the pipe, that is in that drain, for testing.

If the smell is coming from inside the pipe, that test plug should block the smell.
If you pour a little water around the test plug, the water should stand if the seal is not leaking.

If I found the problem was that the seal around the pipe was leaking, I would consider using a low viscosity slow curing marine sealant, such as BoatLIFE Liquid Life-Calk Sealant. There are other marine sealants that you could check out. I don't have experience with them. To keep adhesive from flowing down the pipe during the cure, you might plug that pipe with a big candle or other removable plug. I think 3m 5200 would be too viscous to get the flow into the crevices that I would be looking for.

 

[Jadnashua]

Interesting sidenote...long time ago, I lived in Germany and was staying at a friends house for a couple of weeks. THey had an odor they couldn't identify or locate the source of. They hired a professional 'nose'. The guy came in, and in about 15-minutes, found a leak under some vinyl wallpaper near a window that had a bunch of mold underneath it. Fixed the leak, cleaned things up, problem solved. Leave it to the Germans to have specialists for this type of thing!