bad smell from hidden waste

[suzette]

Have bad smell coming from the basement from the waste(siphon) in the washing room and bathroom, that can be solved with a waste trap that has small reservoir for water, but have got another room where tiles have been installed, perhaps over the waste. How can I find the waste I have no plans, to look at? tried tapping gently with the hammer and listening but that left me with a hole and no waste, any suggestions how to find it?

[Paul Barker]

Some of the meaning got lost in translation from French.

However you may be saying that there is no vent and so the traps are getting the water sucked out of them. You can replace them with hebvo traps, or just add one hepvo trap on the highest item like a wash handbasin or utility sink. This one trap, when the basin isn't full of water then acts as an AAV.

Or you could make a permanent AAV with a seperate hepvo on a branch.

What any of this has to do with tiles I don't know.

[suzette]

I am not a professional so I don't know the exact terms, each room has on the floor a siphon were say if you were cleaning the floor by poouring water with a buckect It would go away through it, I can replace the traps I can see to ensure that the smells stop, but the point is that because the tiles were installed over the siphon, I cannot see were it is, therefore I need to locate it, and was wondering wether there is a method I could use.

Thanks,

[Paul Barker]

What is it a load of wet rooms in a health spa or something?

Have you got a soil stack which is open to atmosphere up above the highest window?

Only way you can get smells is if the water in the traps has been syphoned out, caused because of the pull on a long branch of say a loo flushing. The way round it is to have a one way valve which allows air into the system but not out. This is an air admittance valve (AAV).

You can buy an AAV for about 30 quid, it would need to go above the highest part of the system which has water in it.

A cheaper alternative is to buy a hepvo trap. normally 12 or so, but Graham's (part of Jewsons) at the moment have them on special. Thinks, "I must get round there and buy a shed load.... best thing since sliced bread" (what was the best thing before sliced bread?)

Sorry jokes probably lost in translation.

[suzette]

i understand about the one way valve, and I don't know wether there is a soil stack open to atmosphere at the above the highest window, I presume so but this is a 1970 house in France so don't know

It is normal for rooms to have siphons on floors for cleaning, recently it has become fashionable in the uk and they talk of wet rooms as the latest thing but in other parts of the world a siphon on the floor has always been used.

Now the problem I have is finding this one that has been covered with the tiles, the room was previously a garage why would they put one there? apparently there was no water to that room although easily done as a toilet is point next. the popint is how to find it without breaking the whole floor, and if it isn't that then it suggest a worse problem , the smells is specially acute when there is low pressure and mild weather or when it has rained a lot it doesn't necessarily smells of toilet though although not pleasant. Could it be the pipe for rain water is broken? I don't know.

[Paul Barker]

OK so there is a cultural problem.

The only wet rooms that have so far reached Scarborough are pokey little rooms put together very amateurishly in pokey little houses too small for a proper bathroom. What happens is you go in there for to take a leak paddling in the wet floor and what was dry dirt on yer boots then gets spread around the house.

Wet rooms are rubbish.

No sorry your experience is not common to me so can't help any more, not unwilling, just ignorant.

[Paul Barker]

Sorry, to elaborate, it's so cold in Scarborough folk like carpet on the ground floor. Though there was a recent period when people with awful taste (at least half of Scarborough) followed Linda Barker and co into laminated floors everywhere, nobody has been so stupid as to tile more than one or two rooms in a cold climate. Just isn't wise.

[suzette]

Thanks Paul I understand, just wanted to add I reckon in the UK siphons on the floor were never in fashion because houses are build say with bricks on the outside and internal walls and floors made of plasterboards, so it isn't common to tile floor in bathrooms as they are likely to get broken as the flors are suspended and flexible, here you see it is all concrete so you can put tiles everywhere in your bedroom if you like, I admit it gets cold and not wise in cold climate but then you have carpets which although comfortable temperature wise they can not get really cleaned and are house for dust mites, astma etc. the point is both ways have pro's and con's . here any minor repair means big mess breaking through internal brick walls!

Thanks again,

Suzette

[chrishutt]

Suzette, I think I understand the situation you are describing but a solution is not obvious. You suspect that there is a siphon (trap) in the floor which has lost its water seal (by evaporation) and which is letting smelly drain air in. Unfortunately it has been tiled over so you cannot find where it is to seal it.

The only thing I can think of is to locate the pipe from this siphon outside the room and drive some smoke up it so that the smoke will emerge into the room in the same way as the bad smell and thus reveal the location of the siphon or pipe end. This may sound eccentric (like the English?) but smoke is often used to identify leaks in drainage systems.

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[suzette]

Hi Chris:

You have described my problem exactly, and your idea of the smoke does not seem all that eccentric at all, but now you have to explain a few things to me because as far as plumbing is concerned I know as much as the average housewife (although keen to learn) firstly I should have pipes that take dirty water away excluding toilet, then big pipe for toilet waste and thirdly water from rain that also should not mix.

Now, at the corner of the room and the house OUTSIDE (the room in question used to be a garage) I have the pipe for rain water that has a concrete box (hole ) with a lid which you can open and see two tubes going at angule of 90 degrees (the corner of the house. The smell is along the wall from were 1) the rain pipe runs paralel to meet the other that takes the water from the other half of the roof, 2) the MAIN toilet pipe which has a lid on the wall if you had a big blockage. I do not see anywhere the 3rd one (dirty water excluding toilet, so if I wanted to put the smoke through , through which one should I do that from? and can you explain how to make and conduct smoke in a particular direction?, at one point we thought the smell came in drafts through the wall at the base of it are the pipes. thanks,

SUZETTE

[chrishutt]

I'm afraid I really can't help you any further.

It is difficult to envisage the arrangements you describe; I am not familiar with French practice, which may be different to UK; I do not have any practical experience with smoke tests anyway; and finally it really needs someone on the ground to carry out a careful survey of the waste system.

Good luck with it anyway.

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[suzette]

thanks again,

Suzette

[Paul Barker]

Ah, now you do have a point, there was a spray invented which killed the house dust mite, precipitating a vertual cure of childhood asthma. Trouble was it doesn't do people a lot of good and didn't get passed.

If I had an asthmatic child I would stop smoking (I don't smoke but can guarantee you that every child with breathing difficulties comes from a family of smokers, some people beilieve smoking is child abuse, you cannot adopt a child if you smoke) get blinds in their room and an engineered or solid wood floor (because laminated flooring is so cheap and nasty looking, OK for Essex girls)

Wet rooms will never catch on in Scarborough.

[chrishutt]

Paul wrote:

Wet rooms will never catch on in Scarborough.

Surely they must already have plenty, with you as the local plumber.

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[Paul Barker]

what do you mean? It;s only the back of my soldered joints these days! I'll have it cracked soon, they sell these real long white flexy's at bandq I can just start doing all my jobs with them. Do you think we still need to sleeve out gas pipes through walls if they're made up of daisy chained flexy's?