Sewer smell in House – Surprise cause
Hi All,
Long post, but I found something I’d never found before and wanted to pass it on. I built my house a couple of years ago. The laundry room is off of the garage. Starting last winter, every time my wife ran a load of laundry we got a sewer smell in the garage. The first thing I thought was that the traps in the garage floor drains were dry. I checked, nope they were ok. I then looked up at the roof vents from the ground. It being winter, there was snow on the roof, but the plumbing vent for the laundry room stuck well proud of the snow on the roof, and didn’t look blocked by snow. It being winter, I convinced my wife to live with the smell until summer. I wasn’t going to climb up to check that the vents were not plugged with something, due to the fear of falling off the 9/12 roof pitch. This summer, I climbed up and checked the vents and they were fine. By this time my better half was getting pretty tired of the sewer smell, which was still going strong when every she washed some laundry. The next step was to call the septic guys. We have an Advantec septic system. This is basically a fancy septic system with a pump that circulates the effluent to make it work better. This system has to be checked periodicly, so I expected there was a problem with it, and that it was backing up into the line to the house. No such luck. The septic guys said it was running fine. Darn! By this time I was running out of ideas. Time to call for some professional help. I got a plumber out at $125.00/hour to sort out the situation. Of course he checks the garage floor drain traps, they are fine. He checks out the utility sink and the drains in the laundry room, they are all fine. My wife says “Standby, I’ll do a load of clothes, and you can find the source of the smell”. No such luck. The plumber and I stand in the garage for the 45 minute laundry cycle, and we don’t smell a darn thing. The plumber shrugs he shoulders, gives me a bill and says to call if the smell comes back. Just as he is walking out the door he gets a whiff of something. We immediately check all the traps for the floor drains, sinks, etc. Everything smells fine. We both do a bloodhound immitation trying to find the source of the smell, and it eventually leads us away from all plumbing fixtures in the garage of any kind. We get to a wall that has absolutely no vent or plumbing lines in it at all??? We trace the smell to an electrical outlet! WTF!!!!! It is not a burnt electrical smell, it is definatly a sewer smell, and it is very strong coming out of an electrical outlet. How the heck can this be I wonder? We pull off the cover plate, and the smell is even stronger. It is definately a very strong sewer smell coming from the box. The outlet looks fine, no corrosion or burning or anything. Finally I get it figured out. I look outside the wall and there is the control box for the Advantec septic system on the outside of the wall just opposite the electrical outlet. This box has a couple of 1″ electrical conduits running down below ground level that take power to the pump in the septic tank. I open the control box and whewwww it totally stinks like septic. It turns out that the smell was traveling from the tank, up the conduit to the control box, thru the back of the control box into the wall where the 110v power came in, then thru the wall and out the outlet into the garage. i would have never thought that was possible. A little expanding foam took care of the problem. It’s been 2 weeks, no sewer smell, and my wife is happy. I’ve been to the big city, a couple of state fairs, a couple of rodeos and goat ropin’ and I have never ever seen anything like that before.
Replies
Long post, but I found something I'd never found before and wanted to pass it on.
I built my house a couple of years ago. The laundry room is off of the garage. Starting last winter, every time my wife ran a load of laundry we got a sewer smell in the garage.
The first thing I thought was that the traps in the garage floor drains were dry. I checked, nope they were ok. I then looked up at the roof vents from the ground. It being winter, there was snow on the roof, but the plumbing vent for the laundry room stuck well proud of the snow on the roof, and didn't look blocked by snow. It being winter, I convinced my wife to live with the smell until summer.
I wasn't going to climb up to check that the vents were not plugged with something, due to the fear of falling off the 9/12 roof pitch. This summer, I climbed up and checked the vents and they were fine.
By this time my better half was getting pretty tired of the sewer smell, which was still going strong when every she washed some laundry. The next step was to call the septic guys. We have an Advantec septic system. This is basically a fancy septic system with a pump that circulates the effluent to make it work better.
This system has to be checked periodicly, so I expected there was a problem with it, and that it was backing up into the line to the house. No such luck. The septic guys said it was running fine. Darn! By this time I was running out of ideas. Time to call for some professional help.
I got a plumber out at $125.00/hour to sort out the situation. Of course he checks the garage floor drain traps, they are fine. He checks out the utility sink and the drains in the laundry room, they are all fine.
My wife says "Standby, I'll do a load of clothes, and you can find the source of the smell". No such luck. The plumber and I stand in the garage for the 45 minute laundry cycle, and we don't smell a darn thing. The plumber shrugs he shoulders, gives me a bill and says to call if the smell comes back.
Just as he is walking out the door he gets a whiff of something. We immediately check all the traps for the floor drains, sinks, etc. Everything smells fine. We both do a bloodhound immitation trying to find the source of the smell, and it eventually leads us away from all plumbing fixtures in the garage of any kind. We get to a wall that has absolutely no vent or plumbing lines in it at all??? We trace the smell to an electrical outlet! WTF!!!!!
It is not a burnt electrical smell, it is definatly a sewer smell, and it is very strong coming out of an electrical outlet. How the heck can this be I wonder? We pull off the cover plate, and the smell is even stronger. It is definately a very strong sewer smell coming from the box. The outlet looks fine, no corrosion or burning or anything.
Finally I get it figured out. I look outside the wall and there is the control box for the Advantec septic system on the outside of the wall just opposite the electrical outlet. This box has a couple of 1" electrical conduits running down below ground level that take power to the pump in the septic tank. I open the control box and whewwww it totally stinks like septic.
It turns out that the smell was traveling from the tank, up the conduit to the control box, thru the back of the control box into the wall where the 110v power came in, then thru the wall and out the outlet into the garage. I would have never thought that was possible. A little expanding foam took care of the problem.
It's been 2 weeks, no sewer smell, and my wife is happy. I've been to the big city, a couple of state fairs, a couple of rodeos and goat ropin' and I have never ever seen anything like that before.
LOL, first time I've seen THAT one double down!
How your eye doing?
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Do ya thinm Greg will get the message, or have you guys just ticked him off ???
Women should stick to women's sports, like mud wrestling and foxy boxing and such and such. [Homer Simpson]
Sorry all,
I knew it was a long post. It is much easier to read with the breaks in it. I'll do better next time.
I was just so happy to sort that one out I had to pass it along.
Cheers,
Greg
I'm gladIt was interesting once I got past all the furry lettering
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
He actually writes a fairly god story. It's just the formatting the needed improvement.I wouldn't have bothered if it weren't worth reading for every one else.
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
God story? I thought it was a goat story -
Another potential, and relatively lesser-known sewer gas potential with respect to laundry is 'over-sudsing' into the laundry standpipe trap. Essentially, oversudsing and the expansion of suds in the standpipe can 'blow out' the trap, causing sewer gas smells.
Jeff
Aw, I've read that whole story somewhere before. Greg
There is no way I could get my eyes to read that mass of print on the screen. Try it this way.
" 122709.1
Hi All,
Long post, but I found something I'd never found before and wanted to pass it on.
I built my house a couple of years ago. The laundry room is off of the garage. Starting last winter, every time my wife ran a load of laundry we got a sewer smell in the garage. The first thing I thought was that the traps in the garage floor drains were dry. I checked, nope they were ok.
I then looked up at the roof vents from the ground.
It being winter, there was snow on the roof, but the plumbing vent for the laundry room stuck well proud of the snow on the roof, and didn't look blocked by snow.
It being winter, I convinced my wife to live with the smell until summer. I wasn't going to climb up to check that the vents were not plugged with something, due to the fear of falling off the 9/12 roof pitch.
This summer, I climbed up and checked the vents and they were fine. By this time my better half was getting pretty tired of the sewer smell, which was still going strong when every she washed some laundry.
The next step was to call the septic guys. We have an Advantec septic system. This is basically a fancy septic system with a pump that circulates the effluent to make it work better. This system has to be checked periodicly, so I expected there was a problem with it, and that it was backing up into the line to the house. No such luck. The septic guys said it was running fine. Darn! By this time I was running out of ideas.
Time to call for some professional help. I got a plumber out at $125.00/hour to sort out the situation. Of course he checks the garage floor drain traps, they are fine. He checks out the utility sink and the drains in the laundry room, they are all fine.
My wife says "Standby, I'll do a load of clothes, and you can find the source of the smell". No such luck. The plumber and I stand in the garage for the 45 minute laundry cycle, and we don't smell a darn thing.
The plumber shrugs he shoulders, gives me a bill and says to call if the smell comes back. Just as he is walking out the door he gets a whiff of something. We immediately check all the traps for the floor drains, sinks, etc. Everything smells fine. We both do a bloodhound immitation trying to find the source of the smell, and it eventually leads us away from all plumbing fixtures in the garage of any kind. We get to a wall that has absolutely no vent or plumbing lines in it at all??? We trace the smell to an electrical outlet! WTF!!!!! It is not a burnt electrical smell, it is definatly a sewer smell, and it is very strong coming out of an electrical outlet.
How the heck can this be I wonder? We pull off the cover plate, and the smell is even stronger. It is definately a very strong sewer smell coming from the box. The outlet looks fine, no corrosion or burning or anything.
Finally I get it figured out.
I look outside the wall and there is the control box for the Advantec septic system on the outside of the wall just opposite the electrical outlet. This box has a couple of 1" electrical conduits running down below ground level that take power to the pump in the septic tank. I open the control box and whewwww it totally stinks like septic. It turns out that the smell was traveling from the tank, up the conduit to the control box, thru the back of the control box into the wall where the 110v power came in, then thru the wall and out the outlet into the garage. i would have never thought that was possible. A little expanding foam took care of the problem.
It's been 2 weeks, no sewer smell, and my wife is happy. I've been to the big city, a couple of state fairs, a couple of rodeos and goat ropin' and I have never ever seen anything like that before."
Sphere will be gl;ad to know that a little of the right caulk will keep your wife happy for a whole two weeks.
And liberal use of that 'Enter' key on your keyboards will keep the rest of us old geezers happy enough to be able to read your wit.
Welcome to the
Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime.
where ...
Excellence is its own reward!
Wow, three people had the same story! What are the odds of that??
I wonder if technically the conduit from the pump area ought to be explosion-proof, like in gas stations.
In any event, I would have used duct seal rather than expanding foam -- a bit more of a positive seal.
I generally use duct seal anywhere where conduit passes from outside to inside.