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Sewer Smell In Bathroom, need help!

10 years ago

Last week we started noticing a sewer smell in our kids bathroom. It is a dual sink vanity bathroom with a seperate room with the toilet and bathtub/shower. All drains are used regularly. Our house is a one story, built in the mid 80s and this bathroom is used daily. I have tried a number of things to fix the problem and continue to have the sewer odor problem. Here is a list of things I've done so far:

1. Checked attic space for dead rodents. Didn't find anything noticeable but the house has had rodent problems in the past. No smell in the attic.

2. Ran a 25 foot auger into each roof vent pipe, followed by a jet spray of water from the hose. As far as I can tell there were no clogs, though I seemed to hit some turns in the vent pipe.

3. Checked for clogs in the toilet and both sink drains. Didn't find any. Checked for clogs in bathtub up to the J trap, didn't find anything. Did not go back deep into bath drain. Possibly a clog further back?

4. Replaced wax seal on toilet. Didn't seem to be a problem and the smell is still there afterwards.

5. The smell seems to be strongest and most pinpointed close to the ground between the toilet bowl and the side of the bathtub. They are right next to each other with about 1-2 feet between then.

6. It seems that the smell is coming out of the sinks, but not as strong. Both the vanity room and the toilet/bathtub room have the smell.

7. I did install a new flushing mechanism in the toilet a few weeks ago. As far as I can tell the installation is correct and the toilet flushes. It's a low water flushing mechanism so the flush is not as strong as before.

8. The smell has slowly crept into our living room area but is not strong there and not always there. Might be the odor just carrying over.

I would appreciate any insight that anyone has. I'm stumped and am hoping there is a home fix that I can do before shelling out big money for a plumber. I'm thinking that I may have a a broken vent pipe somewhere in the house or a broken line below the house. Crossing my fingers that this is not the case!

Thanks in advance for all help!

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Comments (4)

djlandkpl
10 years ago
If all of your traps and toilets have water in them, that should stop any gases from entering the home. Do you have a basement or crawlspace under the house to see if there's a line leak?
brickeyee
10 years ago
Check the sink overflows for trapped debris.

They are before the trap and can collect some debris that then starts to smell.
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All kinds of good info right here. Thanks so much. We will def. get sewer protection although I don't think it's a factor at play here (we have no problem flushing i.e.). We will probably look at replacing the gaskets on the toilet (specially the downstairs one where it smells more). The vents in the attic/roof were checked by (a good) inspector - and they were fine. I'd be surprised if they suddenly got clogged (I'll check in the attic just to be sure, of course). But the riser pipes disconnect behind the walls somewhere is intriguing and probably the best bet right now. If I'm understanding this right - a bad sewer riser pipe would manifest itself as we observe it - a smell ONLY in the bathrooms (strongest in the downstairs' bathroom). Does that make sense? Short of breaking the wall any other way to convince ourselves that that is a likely cause? Thanks so much for this great advice!
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We also just had one bathroom with a "sewer smell". In our case, when the water was first turned on in the sink, there would be a blast of the foul odor. First I thought it was the water itself, but then I decided to catch the water in a pot - no smell then. But when I poured it down the drain, up came the smell. Aha, perhap ssome bacteria, etc down the drain. So I poured a bit of bleach down the drain and that took care of it. Hope this helps solve your problem. (BTW, if that wasn't the cause, my next step was to pour some bleach down the sink & tub overflow drains.)
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If "gas meter thing"plumber brought is for detecting natural gas I believe you are on the right track. The utility companie's line might be leaking with gas following your servce line into dwelling. Adding propane to raise line pressure during coldest part of day is common pratice. If you feel compelled to help plumber locate the problem try this. Fold a clean cotten cloth several times and hold it against outlet of grill tank. Make certain to keep tank upright then open valve for 2 or 3 secounds. Does cloth smell similar to odor in basement?
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I am beginning to suspect that it is a dead critter somewhere that we can't see. The smell has changed and it's not as strong and it's confined to the one bathroom on the lower level. Drains are not dry and don't smell, I cleaned everything with bleach, removed toilet and put new wax ring on, ran water down the vent stack, and made sure there was nothing wet under the sink cabinet. I took the cover off of the exhaust vent on the outside of the house and there was nothing in there as far as I could see. I have no idea how to see past where the vent bends down to the fan. If it's something dead that I can't get to I have no idea how long it will smell but we have out of town guest coming in a few weeks and I would really like to have the use of this bathroom.
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stitz_crew
10 years ago
If traps are installed correctly and not tilted the seal line should be fine in trap. Hard to tell is if your system is vented properly. If it is not vented properly the draining water can cause siphoning which will suck water out of the traps. Most of the time this occurs at the shower/tub drain. Get down and dirty and try to locate the drain where the smell is coming from.

Another common place for this is a floor drain where water evaporates in the trap. Mineral oil or antifreeze is an easy solution if you don't have a way to prime it.
bspofford
10 years ago
I had the same problem in a house I lived in 18 years ago. I finally called a plumber. He went into the crawl space under the house and said it had a lot of standing water with sewage in it.

We had to have the toilet removed and the line augered to fix a drain previously, and the line may have damaged by the augering process, causing it to subsequently leak into the crawl space every time it was flushed. We had also had a freeze the winter before, and the drain pipe may have frozen and then leaked. He couldn't tell which, just that it was split and leaking.

The second part of the problem was the screening over the entrance to the crawl space. "Critters" had gone there and there was a lot of critter poop under there. That, combined with the leak, created our own sewage treatment pond, without the treatment part.

He pumped out the crawl space, scattered lots of lime under the house, fixed the pipe, and rescreened the crawl space entrance. Problem solved!

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