Reply With QuoteI imagine it would depend on the smell...
R
Able to offer advice on a smell-related problem? I'd rather not plaster photos of the inside of my house all over the internet, but would welcome sharing the details of the problem via PM if you think you may be able to help me.
Thank you in advance!
I imagine it would depend on the smell...
R
Ignorance breeds Fear. Fear breeds Hatred. Hatred breeds Ignorance. Break the chain.
It's an ammonia-like smell, I'd say, and it seems to be coming from the downstairs bathroom. Actually, this is the PM that I've drafted without the photos.Originally Posted by ralphy
I imagine it would depend on the smell...
R
It's a relatively small (compared to some of the mansion-like residences we see on here at times) 1930s end of terrace in suburban London. The kitchen and office that you can see are extensions to the original house, built before I moved in some 17 years ago.
Left side of the house, with door to the garden. In the side passage that you can see, there's a manhole/interceptor that takes waste from both the kitchen and downstairs bathroom; however, the bathroom waste reaches it via another manhole/interceptor that I'll talk about later.
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Looking towards the garden, the kitchen (part of the extension) and a bit of the dining area.
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A bit further to the right, more of the dining area, the downstairs bathroom and my office (the other part of the extension). The bathroom is lightly used as we have another one upstairs but despite it being in a less than ideal position I thought it was more useful to keep it there than to convert the room for an alternative use
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Inside the bathroom, just to show the finishes (everything tiled, with the obvious issues relating to exposing plumbing, etc).
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And looking into the dining area from my office. In the forefront of the picture there's another manhole/interceptor which takes waste from the bathroom before discharging it to the interceptor at the side of the house that I mentioned earlier. (Obviously having a wooden floor over it could be regarded as less than sensible. However, when it was laid may builder convinced me that it was effectively zero-risk having not had any plumbing problems over the previous 15 years!)
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Okay, to the problem, then. For the past couple of weeks there’s been a smell – I’d describe it as ammonia-like – in and around the bathroom. It’s particularly strong when we get up in the morning – I guess because all the windows and doors have been shut overnight – and it seems to fluctuate in intensity during the day. Despite carrying out multiple sniff tests (!) it doesn’t seem to be actually emanating from the toilet pan, the cistern, the bath waste or the sink waste; however, it does seem to be coming from the bathroom albeit that I suppose it could just seem to be as it’s a small room with very limited ventilation. Oh, and everything seems to discharge without any problems, albeit that if I remove the plug from the bath waste outlet the water level in the trap seems to be quite high.
I’ve lifted the manhole cover at the side of the house and can confirm that both waste from the toilet and bath/sink waste are reaching that interceptor without any apparent problem. That suggests to me that the “hidden” interceptor under the floor in my office is free of blockages. There’s no delay at all in seeing the waste pass through the interceptor and none of the water is discoloured or carrying detritus of any sort.
My problem is understanding what the source of the smell might be and then determining what to do next. If I remove the bath panel there’s likely to be an element of damage to finishes, and taking up the floor in my office doesn’t bear thinking about. On top of that, neither Bea nor I can actually confirm that the smell is emanating from the toilet, bath or sink despite getting up close and personal with said fixtures on a number of occasions. I’m absolutely stumped.
I'm no plumber but what about a cat problem maybe?
A neighbours cat if you don't have one is a possibility.
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Sorry to state the obvious but have you tried a couple of drain unblocking liquids (at the same time) in each plughole? (I always use two as then the solution will pass the trap and get into the pipe below as well) This with a pipe cleaning liquid cleaner afterwards.
I habve a cat, but junless there's a dead one hidden away somewhere I don't think that's the problem.
Indeed I have - the liquid unblocker, at least. No change, and as stated the water discharges without the hint of a problem anyway. (As an aside, even the sink has a concealed waste so that's not easily accessed either.)
We remodelled a few years back and subsequently had a very minor leak from a shower mixer in a void, it went on for a good while and developed a strange aroma in that bathroom. Only discovered by removing the bath panel to investigate.
You may need to consider this as even minor leaks can cause significant damage over time unchecked.
Are the traps emptying/passing under pressure and releasing the smell usually held by the water in the trap ?
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Possibly heard by a gurgling or bubbling. Sometimes caused by 2 or more units using the same pipe and not piped individually
Sometimes fixed by having a longer trap and not one of the new shallow type ones
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As above if there is an air admittance valve, is it working correctly or the bath/sink traps could be emptying allowing smells into bathroom. Also try some cleaner down the bath/sink overflows as these can get smelly as they are seldom in use.
As was ours, bar a fully siliconed in bath panel, smells are funny things as I understand and can travel distances to find a route out and hence if you locate where it’s emanating from its no guarantee it’s the source.
We were lucky that the panel was the path of least resistance to inspect and it was obvious the leak was from the mixer above.
Have you discussed minimal intrusion investigation with your builder / plumber or the option of installing service / access panels?
Thanks both. I do haver a removable panel on the bath - it's just that i fear it won't be as removable as intended and it'll involve some retiling...
As an aside, this is the bath tap (wall-mounted), and there's no overflow. There is one in the sink, though, so I'll shove some bleach in there.
Smells fishy.
Seriously though, IME, toilet smells are rarely ammonia like.
Any chance it could be a decaying rodent behind the bath panel, under floor boards?
Perhaps unlikely though if you haven’t had any other noises/signs of this.
I was thinking mouse urine - has a distinctive smell but you'd probably need a fair few. Alternatively mould (or even rot) under bath/floor though unsure how smell would be getting out.
Tony,
FYI; your bath overflow is integrated in the filler though that might not help with bleaching it.
An ammonia-like smell is most likely from drain gas getting out from downstream of the traps in the room.
Any blockage downstream of the traps can cause temporary pressurisation and a backflow of drain gas, as the water draining twards the blockage pressurises that air causing it to flow back.
And that blockage can be a distance downstream, our neighbours had a bad drain smell in the house, eventually got rid of by removing a relatively small fat-berg in the public sewer just outside.
Or a trap becomes dry from ill-use and allows gas back.
Or failure of an air admittance valves.
I would persist with a scheme of dain clearing and then flooding for a short while before getting professionals in.
The easiest (and cheapest, and best, I think) is caustic soda, but you need to be careful, that stuff will dissolve you as easy as any blockages.
Make the solution up as you use it, the exothermic way it dissolves assists with removing blockages.
D
You're in London aren't you? Sell a Rolex and call out a plumber.
I would recommend taking the bath panel off.
looking at the pictures you can see some areas where the silicone or grout may have failed.
Doesn't take a lot of water over a period of time to create the smell you are describing.
If all dry underneath, drain may be partially blocked.
My thoughts which is why I recommend putting at least two large drain unblocking solutions in at once. We had a problem with the hand basin in the bathroom. It wasn’t blocked as such but slow to drain. Tried the drain unblocker a couple of times with no joy. Only when we put two lots in at once did it work. By putting double the amount in it overflows from the trap into the pipe where the problem is. Worked fine afterwards.
Started out with nothing. Still have most of it left.
Well, today I got up to find that - for the first time in two weeks - there was no smell whatsoever downstairs, and I'm more than a little puzzled by something.
A couple of days ago I was messing around with the bike in the garden, and I noticed that a surface water drainage gulley that runs along the full width of the house (immediately adjacent to the extension wall) was full of standing water. I lifted the gratings and shoved a Marigold-clad hand into the outlet at one end and found that it was packed with rubble-like bits of cement and other debris, so I cleared that out until the water discharged freely. Yesterday I lifted the gratings again, and cleared the drainage channel of years' worth of mud and whatever else was in there; then I hosed it all down until it was nice and clean.
Now, the duct for the extractor fan in the bathroom was obviously re-routed when the extension was built, and now vents on the wall above my office's flat roof. It doesn't seem close enough to anything to be connected to the smell issue and I have to admit that I couldn't really smell anything outside when I was clearing/cleaning the gulley. However, it does seem like a bit of a coincidence that the blockage in the gulley coincided with the smell manifesting itself, and that the day after I cleaned it out the smell - for now, at least - has disappeared.
My head is telling me that the smell is (or, with a bit of luck, was) from something unrelated, but it's certainly left me wondering.
I live in a 200 year old house surrounded by fields, and frequently hear the scurrying of little mice behind the walls and under the floors. About once every couple of years we get a month of a bad smell somewhere which I now instantly recognise as a dead mouse, and I would say it’s an odd almost chemical smell. It starts off mild, peaks for about a week and then fades. It’s not that bad, but it is distinctive.
I do wonder if this is your issue...
Ammonia smell could possibly be gas boiler condensate which is usually routed to an outside gulley
I believe they should have a neutralising sock fitted but many don’t
Could it be this?
Yes, I thought of dead animal too, but unless there's one under the bath I don't see it being the cause.
I wondered about the boiler, but there's no smell inside the cupboard in which its situated. I have no idea what happens to any condensate, to be honest - I didn't even realise that there was any.
Also consider if You have an ingress of rain into the property.Mould can give a similar smell. Also a fridge freezer leak.
If you have this type of boiler it’ll be routed away via a 20-25mm white plastic pipe to an outside gulley .it gets intermittently pumped away sometimes via very convoluted routes- I’ve even seen them put up through loft spaces and out
Pipework usually looks like typical overflow pipework from loo or water tank etc
You shouldn’t smell it anywhere near the boiler cupboard but you may get a whiff from , say the kitchen door/sink gulley etc.
You must be joking! You will need to shift more than one Rolex to get a ‘proper’ plumber out!
If it smells at all more likely to be of hydrogen sulfide (eggy smell).
My downstairs toilet had the same thing a few years ago, turned out to be the old 90 degree clay soil pipe had a sizeable crack in the bend, it was like someone had tried to rod it out and punctured the pipe in the process.
So the flush water was heading out in the soil pipe but a certain amount of it was leaking out into the sub floor creating an ammonia like smell, the sub floor was soaking. I fixed it myself but it was a nasty big old job.
My guess is your sub floor under the house is getting wet somehow and creating the smell.
Morning LTF, I think sweets is right. IMO the odour is almost certainly from drain gas (being the most likely/common explanation). London, long dry summer - have you lifted the sewer drain cover outside to check waste water is running freely? Is it possible the bathroom installer didn't fit a u-bend? Apparently the smell can also be caused by a 'bio film' in your pipes - thorough clean through required.
Well, that would certainly be a worst-case scenario!
Yes, see earlier posts. I've not had the panel off as yet as it'll probably damage the tiled finishes but there's definitely a trap on the bath waste. I am going to give it a good chemical clean, though, albeit I've done it once already.
I do want to repeat my update from this morning foe fear it's getting lost amongst other posts...
Well, today I got up to find that - for the first time in two weeks - there was no smell whatsoever downstairs, and I'm more than a little puzzled by something.
A couple of days ago I was messing around with the bike in the garden, and I noticed that a surface water drainage gulley that runs along the full width of the house (immediately adjacent to the extension wall) was full of standing water. I lifted the gratings and shoved a Marigold-clad hand into the outlet at one end and found that it was packed with rubble-like bits of cement and other debris, so I cleared that out until the water discharged freely. Yesterday I lifted the gratings again, and cleared the drainage channel of years' worth of mud and whatever else was in there; then I hosed it all down until it was nice and clean.
Now, the duct for the extractor fan in the bathroom was obviously re-routed when the extension was built, and now vents on the wall above my office's flat roof. It doesn't seem close enough to anything to be connected to the smell issue and I have to admit that I couldn't really smell anything outside when I was clearing/cleaning the gulley. However, it does seem like a bit of a coincidence that the blockage in the gulley coincided with the smell manifesting itself, and that the day after I cleaned it out the smell - for now, at least - has disappeared.
My head is telling me that the smell is (or, with a bit of luck, was) from something unrelated, but it's certainly left me wondering.
Ah, got ya! I thought you were referring to a surface water gulley (not sewerage) - Sounds sorted.:-)
This might sound like a odd suggestion, but try sniffing the light fittings, we had a smell similar to what you say, but with a slightly fishy odour, we traced it to a old light fitting of all things, if you Google 'light fitting smells fishy', its definitely a thing, I know you said ammonia and not fishy smell but worth a go.
For example:
http://www.delightfullynotedblog.com...d-why-you.html
Cheers..
Jase
And when you ask him to do anything exacting - he responds with “ammonia plumber!”
Get out!And when you ask him to do anything exacting - he responds with “ammonia plumber!”
Sweets provides good advice here.
I haven't studied your arrangement, but would eliminate the possibility of a blockage before exploring other possibilities of which there might be several.
Bear in mind that a blockage may not be local to the point of air leakage from the system particularly if inspection covers are sealed. A responsible blockage could be downstream of the chamber which you observed to be flowing freely including within a shared drain. If you do call upon a drain jetting contractor, ensure they carry a push rod cctv unit and jointly inspect the line upstream and downstream including looking for any sump causing water to hold in the line.
Well, a quick update for anyone interested. About four days ago I poured an entire litre bottle of Mr Muscle concentrated gel cleaner into the loo bowl, and another litre into the bath and sink drains. Then I left it for eight hours.
There's been no smell since, so fingers crossed that a quick fix like that might have done the trick.
Hi Tony,
I’ve had a similar smell for a few years In our kitchen/dining room.. Getting worse when it’s damp or rains for some reason.
I tried everything you have tried and no improvement. I thought I’d solved it by painting the bare plaster in the garage (Attached to the kitchen) after an extension but no it came back.
A few weeks ago,I got the builder round to see if he could throw any light and he said drains. Anyway I finally found a blocked drain and once cleared it’s all gone.
Might not help but that was my experience
Thanks
Andy
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