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sewer smell in our study
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Posted by mavia-2000 (My Page) on Wed, Oct 21, 09 at 23:25
| Our home is 28 years old and occasionally we can smell the sewer when our fireplace doors are open. We have a very tight house. About 12 years ago, there was a terrible smell on one end of the house - study and living room and off dining room. After checking around, it seemed to be coming from a wall switch so we thought it was a dead mouse in the wall. It lasted a couple days.
It comes back every once in a while and only lasts a day or so and so we started to question the dead mouse. We never have found one in the house even though we live out in the country. Then we started to wonder if it was sewer gas but couldn't figure out why it was in the wall - no water in that wall. The only thing we could think of is that there is a soffit running all the way around the family room into the dining room (where there is a bar sink) and it continues into the living room and the study is on the other side of that wall. That is the only sink on that side of the house. There is a switch in the living room wall almost directly behind the study switch but you only get a slight smell from that switch if you put your nose up close.
The smell started again last Sunday and doesn't seem to want to go away. We have put water in every sink, even added bleach but it still is there.
I can't stand to be in the room anymore - I'm getting headaches. What do we do to find what is causing this????
I thought about a home inspection person but do they know that much about sewer problems (if that is what it is)?
Any ideas what we need to do?
Went up on the roof and the pipe is fine. At first I thought it might not be high enough but it is. There hasn't been any new plumbing work done. We have gone from cold weather and have had the furnace on to 70 degrees today but the house has been closed up during this time.
thanks for any help. |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: sewer smell in our study
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| Although different from a sewage odor, maybe you have rain getting into your wall cavity. Wet, moldy insulation and drywall is smelly stuff. If your smell returns a few days after rain, that could account for it. The fact that you smell something at the wall plate is a clue. |
RE: sewer smell in our study
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| Thanks for the reply but there isn't any way water could get into that wall. It's a sewage smell. It went away yesterday. |
RE: sewer smell in our study
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| You should read my post "has anyone used this". You should get a smoke test. They set off a smoke bomb, made especialy for this, and they blow smoke into the plumbing and venting. Then you look to see where the smoke comes out. I wish I had done this years ago. |
RE: sewer smell in our study
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| The smell IS BACK this morning. freedee, I read your other post and have been meaning to reply to it. Too many outside things to do before the snow starts. I'll get back when I have a few extra minutes to think.
thanks for answering. |
RE: sewer smell in our study
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| Get a roll of painter's plastic and blue tape. Isolate each room. Wait several hours, then smell behind each sheet. Repeat as necessary until you narrow down the location. As for that wall switch you mentioned in the original post, is it on an outside wall, or on a wall under a staggered roof line? |
RE: sewer smell in our study
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The smoke test (or maybe the peppermint test) is the right suggestion. You may have a sewer vent pipe running through that wall that has a leak due to a nail or disconnection. This leak is allowing sewer gases into the wall cavity which are leaching out into your room via the electric switch/outlet.
This problem may be more apparent in cold weather due to gases sinking as they get colder. |
RE: sewer smell in our study
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| How about an update? Problem solved? |
RE: sewer smell in our study
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| The smell has been gone about three weeks so we figured the smoke test wouldn't work. There is no sewer vent pipe in that wall. This has happened every once in a while for years. Thanks for asking homebound. |
RE: sewer smell in our study
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| This happened at our weekend lake place one winter. The smell was in an upstairs guest bedroom. The origin of the problem was the drain in our laundry room which was a level below. The water in the drain had evaporated from lack of use and septic odors were coming in. We've prevented it since then by just making sure we run water down there occasionally. |
RE: sewer smell in our study
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| If there has not been any remodeling or plumbing repairs, a broken pipe or nail hole would not be my first suspect. I would check for a clogged vent pipe first. get on the roof and run a garden hose down each plumbing vent. Don't turn the water on until you are sure you can get to slab level. Squirrels, birds and just tree droppings will sometimes plug the vents. |
RE: sewer smell in our study
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| About there being no sewer vent pipe in that wall. When our smoke test revealed where the opeing was, it was about 20 feet from where we smelled the odor the most. it was behind a wall and was enclosed is that wall. It drifted pretty far from it's sourse because it had a straight opening behind a wall. It would sometimes go elsewhere if the air was moving, like when the fan in the powder room pulled the air up. |
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