Smell of sewerage in house

D

DeeDee100

Registered User
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Hi all,
My house was built in 2005, a new development. I moved in last Oct. There is a disgusting smell of raw sewerage in my house for the past 2 days. This isn't the first time either. It starts in the hallway and ends up creeping up the stairs. Last night it took me ages to sleep as the smell was even coming into my bedroom.
The builders are gone on 2 weeks holidays so I rang the Health Board today and they're going to call me back. The County Council haven't taken over the estate yet so they won't look into it.
Has anyone else encountered this problem? And how did you get it sorted?
Appreciate any help on this one.
 
check that there is water in the U bends of all the sinks, etc. It is this water that forms a seal to stop these smells getting into the house. See this & this.
Leo
 
The smell starts from the hallway.....there is no downstairs loo....the piping is there for it, but the toilet was "an optional extra" for €1500. Who in their right mind would pay that, eh!! Anyway, the pipe for the toilet waste is sealed. But maybe it's not sealed properly? I know the smell of sewerage has been a problem for other house in the estate so that leads me to believe the problem is elsewhere.
 
Had the same problem in our house and some of the neighbours...turns out the the pipe under the house was cracked which was letting water in and it sat in a bend...which is what the smell was....stagnent water...espically with this heat.very unplesent. They rerouted my pipes to my back garden where i now have waht looks like a small equivelent of a fire hydrant...they had to dig up outside my front door and also..perhaps lazy workmanship or just ignorance...the plumber never sealed the pipes that were under the stairs(where a downstairs loo would have been if the new wheelchair reg were not brought out) and also under the kickboards in the kitchen! Big messy job. Try run an empty wash..perhaps its the ubend at the washing machine...also i put bleach down the drains for a while,...helped for a bit but the smell came back!
 
Had a similar problem in our apartment a couple of years ago. It was an infrequent occurance. But at one stage it got very bad and we had to move in to one of the other bedrooms. It turned out that the cause was a combination of factors:

1. the en-suite toliet connection into the main drain in the floor was not properly sealed (there was a small gap, couple of mm, around the back of the toilet).
2. The drains were vented via the roof by light flexible plastic piping which would get partially blocked with condensate, thus sagging the piping and result in an almost total blockage of the vent pipe.
3. The vent pipe got disconnected from the vent roof tile.
4. The wind direction
 
Also check that the main sewer isn't blocked. I've got a manhole for the previous terrace in my driveway, and it blocked up badly a while ago and they all told me the smell was coming up their sinks and everything....
 
In new estates there can often be problems with blockages of sewers, due to sediment and builders' waste in the pipe runs and manholes. However new first time buyers can do foolish things like pouring grease and fat down sinks or flushing nappies down the toilets! I'd lift ant AJ covers in my own property first to eliminate immediate problems with blockages. If there is no evidence of this then the problem may be further down the line, although traps and seals on appliances in your home should have kept these odours at bay.
 
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