The PVC waste pipe from our washing machine has a small drip which lets smells from the outside drain gully into the utility room. Especially if the extractor fan has been running.
The leaking joint is cemented. It may not be the best solution but would PVC cement around the joint seal it?
Alternatively would some special mastic compound or tape seal against the stinky vapour? I saw this
Best seen in these pictures.
It attaches to the white sink U-bend you can see in front of it.
These are all waste pipes. The drip is from one of the lower cemented joints and that's what I want to seal up against rising smells.
Would PVC cement do the trick? Mastic? The rubber tape I linked?
The drip is certainly a bad thing and worth sealing, but I doubt if it is the cause of the smells. This will either be a trap not retaining water properly or, possibly, rotting stuff in one of the traps, rather than from the sewer. Especially if it goes outside into a trapped gully. Does the gully smell when you go outside and examine it? If not I'd try dismantiing and cleaning out the sink trap. And the washing machine standpipe trape though this is a less likely cause. People say that liquid detergents are far worse than powder detergents for supporting smelly bacteria, but I have no direct experience to confirm this.
It rather looks as though the washing machine stand pipe has had a trap added. If it didn't orginally have one this was a bad thing!
I may be wrong, but I think the grey (and the bottom of the black elbow) are push fit ittings rather than cemented. They are sealed by a well fitting rubber ring, and work poorly if the pipe in them is scratched or burred.
I would replace the offending fitting (coupler, tee or elbow) with a universal fitting with a screw-up rubber seal like the white ones in the picture. All the sheds sell them. With sufficient force and twisting the push-fit ones will pull off. Clean, degrease andi if necessarry remove any scratches in the pipe with fine emery paper. Use a little silicone grease or soap on the the pipe and screw up the universal fitting tight and it will probably seal.
Me too.
I use liquid detergents exclusively and have never this alleged problem.
Those are"push in" fittings not glued ie "O ring" seals. Therefore dismantlable.
You "U" trap needs to be lower down and your standpipe longer. (Reduces chance of overflow)
You could dismantle, clean up and glue. Apply glue, push in and twist (to spread the glue) Very important.
Remember glue and push in fittings must use pipe from the same manufacturer. They are not quite the same size between different manufacturers.
Compression fittings are universal.
Other possible sources of the smell are the washing machine itself, and the hole through the wall the pipe goes through to the outside, if it is not sealed both at the outside wall and the inside wall.
Another thought; if the gully smells it is probably not foul air from the sewer, but anaerobic rotting in the gully trap. It the trap is fairly near the surface you can get the foul material out with rubber gloves, otherwise some sort of suction is needed. Not pleasant, though.
Here's a picture of how the pipe is attached. The camera angle makes all the pipes look wonkier than in real life.
The two traps are clean and the washine machine smells fresh even if left unused for a week. The washer exhaust hose doesn't smell and has no gunk.
The odour entrering the room is exactly that of the outside gully which had a lot of gunk (not fatty) and has now been cleaned but it will inevitably be smelly. There was an old style ceramic cover with holes that held a lot of smelly gunk and has been replaced with a metal grid cover.
Dismantling the joint is a too ambitious for me.
Until I get all this pipework replaced in the summer, what would you use as a temporary repair for the leak?
There isn't a ventilator in the outside wall near the gully, by any chance?
No there isn't.
Often enough. One a week bleach is poured down the sink and small overflow hole overnight.
The smell is identical to the drain gully and I don't think it is rising through the U-bends. A windy day sometimes makes the smells enter. The lower pipe leaks and is a suspect. Best seal it and see if it helps the smells but using what?
Standpipe? U bend?
What happens at the top of the right hand grey vertical pipe?
How does it attach? Another picture would help....
How often does that sink get a load of water chucked down it?
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