Smells from under the floor

[ditchy001]

Will someone PLEASE help me !!!!

About 18 months ago the well/water sump in our cellar dried up. About 3 months later we started to get a really weird smell coming from under the lounge floor. Just 2 weeks earlier our hamster escaped and chewed its way through the carpet and floorboards so I thought it was the hamster.

The smell persisted so got a damp specialist to have a look - no, one of the best damp corses he has seen (thats some good news at least). He told us to put in some airbricks to help with the ventilation. Did this and it made no difference.

The smell got soooo bad that we ended up having another look down there ourselves. When we were down there we noticed in the floor was a hole (about the size of a milk carton top) and the smell was much stronger there. Shone a torch down there and saw some black sludge!

Called the Water Board, the Council, private plumber, Environmental Agency and even the insurance people. NO-ONE knows where the water/silt is coming from or how to get rid of the smell. The Water Board only have survey maps showing any drainage from 1936 - Thats not good to me!

We have had another look and moved a few stones and it seems we have a natural water drain which had been build before the house was built and seems as if it runs the whole length of the street (the problem being is that we are at the bottom of a quite steep hill).

Can anyone suggest anything because we are drawing a large blank.

I look forward to hearing from someone soon.

Many thanks.

 

[danlightbulb]

Perhaps fill the hole with mortar?

 

[ditchy001]

Thanks for the reply but its not a hole that can be filled. We need to know what to do about the whole drain.

 

[stefant]

I'm assuming that the well/sump in the cellar has some means of discharging its contents so perhaps the "hole" is part of the drainage for that. Then again it may be a land drain or a foul/rainwater drain that's been broken into. How deep below the cellar surface is it?

We have a property in Manchester that has a back-feed gulley in the cellar floor that flows after rain. This drains into the main sewer, but the gulley has a trap so there's no smell from that. We also have a land drain running alongside the outside wall footings but have no idea where it discharges - no smell from this though.

If it is a drain then you could try a camera survey, although if there's a lot of silt it may not reveal much - and they're not that cheap

If there's a lot of silt you will probably not be able to do any rodding but you could try flushing with a hose-pipe on the down-stream side to see whether water will flow. Make sure the nozzle cannot be detached from the pipe or you'll almost certainly lose it ;-/

My solution then would be to dig out the "hole" and expose the drain on either side, cut back say 18 inches either side - angle-grinder with diamond blade - and fit a length of 100mm plastic using flexible couplers at either end.

If you need to retain a discharge point then fit a Tee with suitable reducing conections to your ?pump? via a deep waste trap. If you merely want access then fit a sealed rodding eye. Should be straight forward if you've got the room to work under the floor. Max cost - about £50 including angle-grinder hire.

There's no reason why you couldn't replace the full length of the drain under your property, although the new lengths could be awkward getting down there. No problem though, just cut them and fit normal plastic connectors.


Hope this helps