Hi,
I recently bought my first place, and the downstairs bathroom smells, well, sh***y, you get the point?. :(
I cleaned it well with bleach, thorugh out.. but still. I get that smell I cant get rid of. Both the upstairs and downstairs bathroom shares the same plumming. Upstairs bathroom smells clean, no issues there, it is just the downstairs bathroom.
any tips?
Maybe the trap has dried out, letting sewer gas up.
failedaircare-man wrote:
Is there a floor drain? Or, is there a space between the bottom of the toilet and the floor? If so sewer gas might be coming up from those places. If no to both, check under the toilet rim for years worth of uncleaned filth. Another possibility is stinky grout in front of the toilet. Ed
failedaircare-man wrote:
The toilet bowl may not be sealed thoroughly to the drain (closet flange). That can allow sewer gas to escape even when there is no sign of water leakage.
Jim
pardon my ignorance guy, but whne you guys say the " trp " are you guys talking about the yellow wax thing under the toilet bowl.?
That sucks, buying your first house and having a smelly bathroom. May be that's why the last people left. It could be a smelly ghost that shat its pants.
I had a toilet wax ring go bad letting in sewer gas, If all your traps have water in them look into a new wax ring.
The trap is the U-shape (or S-shape) part of the bowl which holds the bowl water. The water keeps sewer gas from escaping. A wax "ring" connects the bottom of the bowl to the closet flange (drain).
Another possibility is leaking/ deteriorated vent. How old is house? But try other suggestions first, since fixing this could mean opening up wall. Waste drain itself shows no signs of leak?
The house is 30 years old,
leaking / bad vent? what should I look for? please advise.
what does the vent looks like? Pardon my ignorance, i am new at DYI :*(
It's a pipe. Usually PVC. Behind the wall and up through the roof.
But what could go wrong with a pipe?
I vote for bad wax ring.
We have a basement bathroom with toilet, sink, and shower. The sh***y smell happens for us because the shower is seldom used and the trap dries out allowing sewer gas to come into the room. Run a little water in the shower and the smell goes away.
Try running water in all of the water-using fixtures in the bathroom. If the smell goes away, you know it's caused by drying traps. If it doesn't, then I'd bet your toilet isn't properly sealed to the drain flange in the floor. You didn't say if this was a basement bathroom. Basement bathrooms are notorious for toilets not sealing properly because of the way the drain flange in the floor that the toilet sits on is installed differently than a drain flange on the upper floors. In a basement, the waste drains have to be installed before the concrete floor is poured. This means the plumber has to determine the exact height of the drain flange for the toilet before the floor is poured. If the plumber doesn't get the height of the flange correct, or doesn't get the flange level, or the folks who pour the floor don't or can't get the concrete level with the flange, sealing the toilet to the drain flange using a wax ring can be difficult. I've seen cases where one wax ring just wasn't thick enough to seal properly because the flange was too low and two wax rings had to be stacked to get a proper seal.
Harry
Since you're new to the DIY world (welcome to the jungle, by the way) let me ask some questions and share some steps to check, if it's any help.
First, a "trap" is the 's' or 'j' shaped bend in the pipe (or in the base of the toilet) that stays filled with water. Its purpose is to keep sewer gases from coming out of the pipes into the house...thus it "traps" the gas in the pipes.
Do you have a complete bathroom in the basement, or powder room (sink and toilet) or water closet (just toilet)? If just a toilet, have a reliable plumber or friend skilled in plumbing remove the toilet from its seat in the floor. The toilet sits on a flange in the floor, and there is a wax ring around the flange that creates a water- and gas-tight seal between the toilet and the flange. The wax seal could be cracked from age or someone abusing the john (by sitting on it wrong, people! Wow, where are your minds?)
If you have either a powder room or full bath, try pouring about a quart to gallon of water down the drain(s) - sink and tub if you have one. In this case, what may have happened was the water in the trap evaporated over time, letting sewer gas come out of the drains.
How old is the bathroom? What is the floor surface in the basement bath? I ask this because plubming requires a vent stack - you may have seen a pipe sticking out of your roof which allows sewer gasses to escape, and also allows the pipes to pull air in as needed during a rapid movement of a lot of water, such as flushing a toilet. (A fast-moving large volume of water will create suction in the pipes and the stack alleviates the suction. Otherwise you get a thundering sound in your tub or sink.) Now - sometimes in remodeling projects, a plumber will create a stack vent inside the wall of the bathroom, and cap it with a special valve that will allow air to be suctioned in when the toilet flushes, but won't allow sewer gas to escape. If the spring/plunger meant to keep the stack sealed against the escape of gas has gone bad from age, you could be getting sewer gas coming into the room that way.
Just some thoughts from someone who recently built his first basement bathroom and learned a lot about plumbing and code...but still has WAY more to learn.
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