Bad stink at my mothers house.

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Rorschach
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Bad stink at my mothers house.

Post by Rorschach »

No not her........ mostly :lol:

There is a bad sewer smell at my mothers house, she can't smell it but that's likely acclimatisation and age. I can definitely smell it, smells like sh*t.
It's worst around the downstairs bathroom. I have checked the likely culprits, shower and sink traps, both are fine. Checked out the outside drain, also fine.

Here is the weird bit, I know exactly when it started, but I cannot for the life of me work out how it is causing a smell in her house.

It all started after her neighbours had their drain power flushed. I was there that day, as you can imagine the whole street stank. From that day, the smell has been lingering around her house, sometimes worse, somedays not there at all.
The obvious answer would be that the drain flushing company simply pushed the problem back to my mothers house, but the neighbours are on a different sewer line. We know this because they have had trouble before and my mother has only had one blockage in 40 years, and that didn't affect the neighbours.
I also pulled the inspection cover at my mothers, it is spotlessly clean, free flowing and hardly smells of anything.

So what on earth is going on?
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kellys_eye
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Re: Bad stink at my mothers house.

Post by kellys_eye »

Klingons? Checked your own shreddies for potential culprits? Could be you're dragging it around with you :lol:

(in other words, no, I haven't a clue)
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Re: Bad stink at my mothers house.

Post by Bob225 »

drop some dye tracer, is there a air admittance valve in the room ? checked the cupboards, possibly decaying meat ?
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Re: Bad stink at my mothers house.

Post by big-all »

i wonder iff its pushed some sewage perhaps through a break in the pipe and possibly pooling under the house somwhere :dunno:
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Re: Bad stink at my mothers house.

Post by Rorschach »

kellys_eye wrote:Klingons? Checked your own shreddies for potential culprits? Could be you're dragging it around with you :lol:

(in other words, no, I haven't a clue)
Maybe I should stop rubbing my nose after wiping my arse :lol:
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Re: Bad stink at my mothers house.

Post by Rorschach »

big-all wrote:i wonder iff its pushed some sewage perhaps through a break in the pipe and possibly pooling under the house somwhere :dunno:
I thought that, but as far as I am are they are on a different sewer line (there is one for each side of the road and I am pretty sure they are linked to the opposite side given the location and layout of their inspection cover compared to ours.

Also we are slightly uphill from them, if it had pushed something under the house I would expect it to have dried out by now, been a few months since they had their drains done. Whenever I have had the floor up there in the past, while it is a dirt floor underneath, it has always been bone dry and fresh smelling.

Pulled the little divider from the shower trap (one of those low profile ones) and had a look, all looked pretty clean, the air blowing through smelled exactly like what I can smell in the bathroom though, sewer smell, but that stopped blowing through when the divider was replaced so I am 99% certain it isn't coming through there.
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Re: Bad stink at my mothers house.

Post by Rorschach »

Bob225 wrote:drop some dye tracer, is there a air admittance valve in the room ? checked the cupboards, possibly decaying meat ?
No durgo or anything in the house. Cupboards are clean, bathroom is opposite end of the house to any source of food and it's definitely a sewer gas smell.
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Re: Bad stink at my mothers house.

Post by Argyll »

I bought one of those electric pressure cookers and I've been experimenting with various menus. I made some home made lentil soup and over indulged. I think I had about 5 bowls one day. The following day I was at a customers basement working on a renovation and couldn't stop farting. It was vile and I was almost puking it was that bad.

The following day I walked in to find a plumber with the back of the toilet wall off. He said the customer suspected the toilet hadn't been vented properly and the whole place stunk. I was embarrassed but eventually told the customer. He saw the funny side of it.

When he paid me he also gave me a can of glade :lol:
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Rorschach
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Re: Bad stink at my mothers house.

Post by Rorschach »

Bit of an update. Outside the bathroom there is the storm drain for the guttering at that side of the house. There was not much wind today and I could clearly smell the same odour from around that drain area.
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Re: Bad stink at my mothers house.

Post by Bob225 »

A good few bucket of water down the drain should cure it unless the trap has broke, its just the sewer gasses then
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Re: Bad stink at my mothers house.

Post by dewaltdisney »

Check there is no weeping from a washing machine union. You would be amazed at the capillary action and how far a little water creeps. The smell you have can come from under floor coverings from water damage.

Just an idea. we had that smell in the kitchen from a tap drip under the sink cupboard. It worked under the vinyl sheet flooring and the whole house smelt fusty. I ripped up all the flooring and let it dry before installing new.


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Re: Bad stink at my mothers house.

Post by Rorschach »

dewaltdisney wrote:Check there is no weeping from a washing machine union. You would be amazed at the capillary action and how far a little water creeps. The smell you have can come from under floor coverings from water damage.

Just an idea. we had that smell in the kitchen from a tap drip under the sink cupboard. It worked under the vinyl sheet flooring and the whole house smelt fusty. I ripped up all the flooring and let it dry before installing new.


DWD
Definitely no issues there, the kitchen is the other side of the house and no smells there.
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Re: Bad stink at my mothers house.

Post by Rorschach »

Bob225 wrote:A good few bucket of water down the drain should cure it unless the trap has broke, its just the sewer gasses then
Tried that, ran the hose down there and wiggled it around to rinse anything out, still a smell coming through. Really hope the trap hasn't broken as it would be a hell of a job to dig out the concrete.
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Re: Bad stink at my mothers house.

Post by Bob225 »

The only way the gasses would come up is if there was no water in it, any big plants or trees near by ?
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Re: Bad stink at my mothers house.

Post by Rorschach »

Bob225 wrote:The only way the gasses would come up is if there was no water in it, any big plants or trees near by ?
Nope, it sits right in front of the house and there is concrete and tarmac for several meters around it, never been a big tree or plan nearby. Annoyingly because the main trap there is buried I can't see if it does have water in it.
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