Unexplained Bathroom Issue

[allthegearandnoidea]

I recently purchased a new house. Everything is fine except;

I noticed the bathroom (which is upstairs) had an odd smell; somewhere between rotten wood and rotten meat, or maybe waste.

My first thought was that the floorboards were rotten. Admittedly the bathroom floor slopes significantly but this could be largely due to the layout of the house generally, the land is very sloped.

I've had a quick look under the vinyl and the floorboards don't look rotten. I've not had a thorough enough look to say for sure but it seems ok. Plus there's been a couple of other things I've noticed;

1. The smell has generally been getting less severe but
2. It flares up when I run water. Increasingly the smell is seeming more like rotten meat. For example recently I came into the bathroom and there was very little if any smell. Then I flushed the toilet and there was an intense stench of rotten something. It was brief but strong.

As such now I'm wondering if there's something unpleasant (possibly a dead rat) stuck somewhere in the pipes, and whenever I pass water through the system its moving it around, releasing unpleasant gases. However if that is the case, whatever is down there isn't blocking the water flow at all.

I'm not sure what to try. In summary I think there are three distinct possibilities;

1. Rotten floorboards/beams somewhere.
2. A blockage of something unpleasant.
3. A leak somewhere in the waste pipes, leaking out waste.

Possibly it could be some combination of the above. To see if its 2, I could try putting chemicals such as caustic soda down the toilet and see if it clears up. Any other ideas?

Many thanks,

atgbni

 

[just pumps]

Wouldn`t go using caustic soda yet, could you lift cover off manhole in the garden and take a look / sniff there for starters and maybe get someone to flush the toilet whilst you are there.

 

[vinn]

Dont ever use caustic soda or any so called strong drain cleaner chemicals - they can have unpleasant consequences.
No need to: "lift cover off manhole" either.

What you have sounds like a venting issue - it could be that more venting is needed for a fixture or perhaps the venting/drainage is badly designed.
Or, maybe, a pushfit fitting is not fully connected.
Have you examined the WC pan connector and any basin or bath traps - make certain that all traps are water sealed?

Is your plumbing modern - has any building work been done recently?

 

[just pumps]

Is the soil stack vented to the outside or internally with AAV and for the sake of 5 minutes I would inspect the drains if only to eliminate that.

 

[vinn]

Five minutes or five seconds - whats the connection between an AAV &/or the issues described above, and sniffing at a manhole?

 

[L95]

Have the exact same issue where I work. Some muppet drilled holes into a pipe which is above the waste flow under the concrete. Foul smell can be lethal at times but others it's fine. Plumbers came out and described exactly as Vinn has.

 

[Burnerman]

Its curious that the bathroom floor slopes just because the land does
No worries, maybe flushing the loo sucks the water trap out of the wash hand basin, shower or whatever is in there.....any comment?
In any newly acquired property its not a bad idea to find out how your drains lie.
John

 

[vinn]

The OP reported one problem only - "an odd smell" - which implies venting or leakage.
Venting covers references to siphonage, devices and fittings.
"flushing sucks water out of the trap etc." refers to siphonage - why the repetition?

"its not a bad idea to find out how your drains lie" - neither is it a bad idea to find out how the "odd smell" occurs before investigating irrelevancies.

 

[Burnerman]

Surely we are only trying to help this guy, Ree......presumably that's why we take the trouble to reply.

 

[vinn]

Repeating whats already been said, and drifting off into irrelevancies are a strange way of offering help.

I believe that the Pope & the Queen refer to themselves as "we" - just saying.

 

[Newboy]

Ree

I thought I recognised the style!

 

[just pumps]

You still trying to "Get me" as promised in another thread vinn? Well give up pal coz you haven`t got the brains and you are still "talking to the hand" lol

Don`t bother replying because I`m leaving this so called help forum because of the Eejits like you here.

 

[Chri5]

Just a thought, might someone have added the grey waste (sink and or bath / shower) to the foul / poo waste?

 

[Tigercubrider]

Look outside and see if the bath/basin drain into a hopper or not

Is the smell coming from the toilet or the plug holes?

I had a weeping toilet fill stop valve. The water tracked down the pipe, under the floor covering and under the boards with no apparent damage

Only discovered when a massive mushroom appeared overnight on the kitchen ceiling.

On lifting the bathroom floor around the pipe, the ceiling was very wet as were the joints.
I left it open for ages and directed hot air through a knocked up duct to vent the area and dry it out
Replaced the stop valve and all is ok now

 

[allthegearandnoidea]

Hi all,

Thanks for the help. So I finally got round to looking into this and have found some potential clues but I'm still not sure.

I've pulled up the lino and have no found any widespread rot or the like. One of two of them maybe, but the tiles are very tightly fit so I doubt I'll be able to take any of them up without destroying the tile(s).

I've also had a look at my wc pan connector, there is some moisture at the bottom but this doesn't appear to be the issue for a few reasons;

1. I can't always see moisture coming through when I e.g. flush the toilet.
2. The flare up in the smell also happens when I run water down the sink. I don't see how this would cause a smell flare up from a leak in the wc pan connector.
3. There isn't a pool of moisture beneath the wc pan connector, this is particularly odd as the smell from the bathroom is very common, indicating a continuous or frequent leak.

I've had a pretty thorough look and there doesn't appear to be any leaks from the sink or bath traps.

All of my back garden is covered in decking. I can't see the manhole cover but I've got a rough idea of where it is from where my neighbours' covers are. Unfortunately it would mean ripping up some decking to get to it, so I'll only do this if I have to. To avoid any doubt I've checked my conveyancing information and I don't have a right to anyone else's drainage so I'm pretty sure I have my own manhole hidden under there. Also the smell is definitely coming from upstairs so I don't think this will help much.

It looks like my next option now is to take up the floor tiles to see if there is a leak such as Tigercubrider described. Do people agree? Any other ideas?