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New kitchen, terrible smell!

8 years ago

I have a phantom smell in my new kitchen and cannot for the life of me figure out what is causing it! It appears in a corner away from the sink and heating vents, somewhat between the stove and the fridge. A sewer smell, I think, but could also be just about anything decaying. I've stuck my nose in every vent, drain, drawer, nook and cranny and cannot locate the source. It comes and goes, sometimes it is around for an hour, or the whole day, sometimes it disappears for weeks.

Has ANYONE experienced anything similar? All theories are welcome!!

I did climb out on the porch roof today to stick my nose by the external blower. When the blower was off I couldn't smell anything, when it was on I got the smell coming out, but then again the smell was in the kitchen at the time so I think I was just smelling the stinky kitchen air coming through.

The ONLY other thing I can think of is that there was an old drain pipe that was capped when we put in the new kitchen addition. I thought they took out the whole pipe, but maybe not. Could a leaky seal on the cap really be causing a smell to permeate up through the wood floor? I checked the basement/crawl spaces and no smell down there

HELP!

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Comments (4)

beachem
8 years ago
Did you have drywall opened? When we had the last new house built, the workers threw food trash in the stud spaces all over the house and attracted rats that got sealed up and died there. We had rotting smell in one part of the house for 6 months until I was able to force the builder to break open the walls and check.

You may have something sealed in.
Abby F
Original Author
8 years ago
Oh goodness that sounds awful! We basically rebuilt the entire house up from the studs, and added the kitchen. But I was onsite every day and never noticed any mess that would attract vermin. It was a very neat and tidy job site, with a contentious crew. Not to say something didn't get into the walls, but I can't see them sealing something in without noticing it.

I just can't figure out why it comes and goes, or what the coming and going is related to (weather, appliance use, HVAC cycles, phases of the moon......)

Did your smell wax and wane, or was it a constant bad odor? And were you able to sniff out where it was coming from, or was the exact source difficult to pinpoint?
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dmildenb
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For what it's worth, which may not be much, I just had a kitchen contractor try to talk me out of doing an external vent for an OTR microwave hood because (he says) critters get in them. He said he was called out recently to clean out a bunch of birds in somebody's vent.

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