Bath waste trap and horrible smells
- Thread starter cantona
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Only if you never, ever need to get to it.
- Joined
- 17 Aug 2004
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Get the builder back
cantona said:
GRC - Is there actually water remaining in the trap? Try poking a thin dowel or similar dipstick down into the trap and see.... if not, it's possible that water flow from other appliances is sucking the trap water out. Was anything else done at the same time as the bath?
Regards, Graham
Hi Graham,
Thanks for your reply. It's hard to tell if there is any water remaining in the trap. For information, the bath is a free standing roll top, the waste pipe goes directly into the floor for some strange reason (maybe the bath was to low to the floor) where the builder has informed me there is a trap. To access it I would have to break the floor tiles etc. I will try your suggestion. Thats why I wrote the first mail, I thought in these cases plumbers use shallow traps. CHEERS
Thanks for your reply. It's hard to tell if there is any water remaining in the trap. For information, the bath is a free standing roll top, the waste pipe goes directly into the floor for some strange reason (maybe the bath was to low to the floor) where the builder has informed me there is a trap. To access it I would have to break the floor tiles etc. I will try your suggestion. Thats why I wrote the first mail, I thought in these cases plumbers use shallow traps. CHEERS
You can check trap seal by placing a straw thru the plug hole onto the base of the trap.
Place your thumb over the straw and withdraw. Any water in the trap will show its level in the straw. Baths should be 40mm seal and other traps 75 mm.
Obviously for your problem you will need a 6 ft straw to check your trap seal
Place your thumb over the straw and withdraw. Any water in the trap will show its level in the straw. Baths should be 40mm seal and other traps 75 mm.
Obviously for your problem you will need a 6 ft straw to check your trap seal
"the builder has informed me there is a trap"
Don't believe it until you've found it! Apart from smell, there are subtle tell-tale signs that a trap is missing or empty. In a really quiet room you can hear the sound of water in other drains or birds twittering above your soil stack. You might also detect a faint draught on a windy day.
If you suspect you have no water seal down there put some in. Have the birds stopped singing? Now comes the ominous part. You have a trap but it's losing it's water. If you're lucky it's being sucked out by something else such as a flushing toilet. You can test this easily enough. If it disappears slowly all by itself then it's leaking onto the ceiling below.
Time to get the Bob the Bodger back!
Don't believe it until you've found it! Apart from smell, there are subtle tell-tale signs that a trap is missing or empty. In a really quiet room you can hear the sound of water in other drains or birds twittering above your soil stack. You might also detect a faint draught on a windy day.
If you suspect you have no water seal down there put some in. Have the birds stopped singing? Now comes the ominous part. You have a trap but it's losing it's water. If you're lucky it's being sucked out by something else such as a flushing toilet. You can test this easily enough. If it disappears slowly all by itself then it's leaking onto the ceiling below.
Time to get the Bob the Bodger back!
Yep, thats right, the trap could be accessed by cutting into the ceiling below. You could have the builder put in a trap door so you could maintain the trap without having to smash up the tiles every time it clogs up with soap and pubes. 
brumylad said:....smash up the tiles every time it clogs up with soap and pubes.
blarrrh. it'd be easier to buy a ladyshave!
BAHCO said:Obviously for your problem you will need a 6 ft straw to check your trap seal
GRC - In the garden section of my local B&Q, they have thin stakes for holding up plants; they seem to be made of quite absorbent wood, and are barely quarter inch in diameter, around 18ins long. Ideal for a dipstick test; leave sitting in the trap (assuming there is one) for 5 mins or so and see the depth of water when you remove the stick. Could even fasten two together with adhesive tape and still fit them through the waste grid.
As an aside, can you see any evidence of a trap or water seal if you shine a bright light down the bath waste?
Regards, Graham
A dip test will tell you that you do have a trap but it can't prove that you don't. The builder might have used a running trap, though God only knows why. This introduces another possibility. If you have any pipe running uphill towards the trap, bath sludge can collect in it and begin to smell. The solution is the same; get Bob back!
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