We get a rotten egg smell when our 3 year old Whirlpool Cabrio model drains out. I have removed the drain hoses and pump and there was no algae build up or smell. We have dumped a lot of Clorox down the drain and through the washing machine but the smell keeps coming back. Yesterday I was in the attic I believe I found the vent for the washer> Would it help to pour clorox down the vent? Or where should I look? Thanks
Rotten egg smell when clothes washer drains.
- Thread starter Barryrk
- Start date
-
- Tags
- rotten egg smell sulfer
Users who are viewing this thread
City sewer or septic? You want to limit how much bleach you put into your septic tank.
Try leaving the lid/door of the washer open between uses.
Make sure that all drain traps have water in them. You may have a floor drain that has gone dry. Try adding some water to the floor drain, and any other drains in the area, before doing your first load of wash.
Try leaving the lid/door of the washer open between uses.
Make sure that all drain traps have water in them. You may have a floor drain that has gone dry. Try adding some water to the floor drain, and any other drains in the area, before doing your first load of wash.
Sponsor
Paid Advertisement
Thank you for your reply. We always leave the top up on the washer when not in use, that way I can throw my clothes from the doorway into the washer. We are on city sewer connection and I don't know how to check the drains as we are on a slab?
Look around. Sometimes somebody puts a washer or dryer over a floor drain, so those are harder to find.
PorcelainVacation
Member
If the vent ends in the attic, you should extend it to outside the building. It is against all modern building codes to vent into the attic.
There isn't any drains in our house other then what is in the wall. The smell appears to occur when the washing machine is draining. We have tried smelling the drain where the drain hose goes in but there isn't any odor there. Short of tearing out sheet rock is there anything other then pouring bleach done the drain we could do? Thanks
No laundry sink in the area?
Does your vent go out of the roof, or does it dead end in the attic?
We have lived in our house for over 12 yrs. We had a previous washing machine before this whirlpool cabrio model. The rotten egg smell occurred sometime around a year after it was installed. It doesn’t appear here that anyone has experienced the exact same problem. I’m just theorizing from one of the reply’s is it possible that when the machine pumps the water out it does it so strongly that it overcome the p-trap in the wall and that allows the rotten egg smell to permeate our laundry room?
Cacher_Chick
Test, Don't Guess!
The rotten egg smell may be sewer gas coming in the drain because the washer drain is not properly vented. Knowing that the vent is not terminated properly leads me to believe that there may also be other things that are not up to par in your drain and vent system.
Thank you for your reply. I guess where I am puzzled is that we had no problems like this with the previous washer and it wasn’t until this whirlpool model had been in for a year that this odor started occurring when the washer drained. As I said we have lived here over 12 years and I would say most all the other garden homes are built the same. Very confusing???
FullySprinklered
In the Trades
You should start using fresher eggs.
Cacher_Chick
Test, Don't Guess!
There are a couple of things that may be at play here. One is that front loading washers have a tendency to develop an odor. The smell could be coming from within the washer, but that should be pretty clear to you if you stick your head in there after it has sat unused for a couple of days.
The other and just as likely problem is that the newer washers pump their water out much faster than the old top-load units. This requires the washer drain piping to be 2" and the standpipe, trap, and vent all must be properly installed to ensure that the washer drain works properly without siphoning the trap.
A vent that dead-ends in an attic space never met code in any location in the U.S. This is a sign to me that there may vety well be substandard plumbing eksewhere, making it a potential concern.
Without knowing the layout and type of piping that is in place, we can only speculate as to what the fix may be.
Similar threads
