Smells like a drain....

[Louweazle]

Hi everyone

Every few days we get a bad drains smell in the house. Mostly in the kitchen, and worse near the floor. Sometimes though you get the smell as soon as you come through the front door, it still smells in the dining room (which has the original quarry tile floor) but isn't in the kitchen!
It's not the sink or the washing machine. The soil pipe from the bathroom runs down one kitchen wall and disappers into the floor. The downstairs loo soil pipe also goes straight down into the floor. Could the pipes be leaking and the smell coming up through the concrete?

We have a manhole in the drive at the front of the house but no manhole (visible) at the side or back, unlike other houses in the street. We suspect that the other manhole has been covered, as the one at the front was under two feet of lawn - we found it when we dug out the garden to make the drive bigger...

The house was built in 1946 and is the kind with a flat roofed side part that may originally have been a coal store and lavvy, now a kitchen, back porch and loo.

Any ideas on how to find the other manhole?

Also the main soil stack has lost its mesh hat thingy (I noticed that yesterday) could it be blocked high up, forcing smells to build up and seep out?

Sorry for the epic post

Lou

 

[ChrisR]

could it be blocked high up, forcing smells to build up and seep out?

Yes
Get some smoke pellets - plumbers use em, and light a couple in your manhole and shut the llid. You should see smoke pouring out of the top of the stack. If not, rod it upwards if you can, there will be a birds nest in there. Otherwise a long ladder...

YOu can get drains tested for leaks. Either

the ends are bunged and then it's pumped up with air - to a pretty low pressure, and checked for a pressure drop, or

the outlet is bunged, and you fill the lot with water, and see if it drops.

Old drains DO leak, generally.

 

[wilhelm]

i did mine the other day

 

[breezer]

the pellets worked then

 

[Louweazle]

Thanks for the advice , I'll try the smoke test and let you know how it goes.

 

[johnnyg2005]

Have a similar problem with a really rotten smell in the kitchen.
Smells like damp rags or dirty washing times ten.
I lifted a few floorboards and had a look underneath.
Right where the smells coming from, and under the joists, there is what looks like a square well. It's about 3 bricks long, 4 bricks wide, and 3 feet deep, and has about 5 inches of stagnant water in it.
Does anyone know what this is, or was?
The house is approx 60 years old.
Any advice would be much appreciated.