Smelly drains

Jul 19, 2014
5:57 pm

I am have been renting for the past 5 years but am now having our house built.
For the past few years I have been driven mad with the foul smell coming from the bathroom drains

( this house was new when we moved in!) and despite having tried all sorts to remedy the problem I am going to admit defeat as far as this house is concerned, however I don't want a repeat of the problem in our new house, so I have been doing a little research.
I have discovered these http://www.grateseal.com.au/
They look promising and after the ongoing expense and inconvenience of trying to eliminate the foul odour we currently get most of the time I'm willing to try them out. Does anyone else have any experience of these?

SaveH2O

Jul 19, 2014
6:09 pm

pominoz

For the past few years I have been driven mad with the foul smell coming from the bathroom drains

( this house was new when we moved in!) and despite having tried all sorts to remedy the problem I am going to admit defeat as far as this house is concerned, however I don't want a repeat of the problem in our new house,.....

It is most probably a problem with the trap's 'design'. Very poor workmanship if it was.

Stewie D

Jul 20, 2014
11:08 am

I have to agree SaveH2O. You may even find for one or more runs of the sewerage pipes there may not be a trap at all ! I've seen that a few times. The other thing you might try is to make sure there is water in the floor wastes of the bathrooms, laundry etc. Sometimes these dry out particularly in bathrooms or ensuites that are seldom used which means there is no water seal from the rest of the sewer so foul smells can seep into those rooms.

Stewie

mgilla

Jul 20, 2014
4:13 pm

If the trap (the drain near the centre of the room) has water in it and the bathroom is used regularly there's no way for the sewer smell to come back up the pipe and the smell is being generated in one of the waste pipes leading to the trap.
I have seen a basin waste completely blocked over by the person using a certain type of liquid soap. Some of these soaps have extremely high fat contents and coat the waste pipe, over time this builds up and can block a pipe.
If this is your shower waste the hair, skin tissue, and ather crap that goes down there get caught in this sludge and can give off a pretty horrendous smell.

rodericb

Aug 18, 2014
1:39 pm

Approach with caution: viewtopic.php?f=21&t=68560&p=1220641#p1220641

I wouldn't fiddle with one if you are renting. As said above, if you've got a smelly waste it must have poor design(!) or it's drying out for some reason. In my case, I used a grateseal as I have a 85mm grate sitting on top of a 100mm pipe so I'd get a waterfall hitting the water in the trap and the noise echoing up the pipe. Check that you're not going to end up with what I have (especially if on a concrete slab!) and you won't need any grateseals.

Saint Mike

Oct 23, 2014
9:56 am

I'm no plumber ... but ... we had an issue with the "silver" round covers for the outlets in our bathrooms - they kept getting very dirty. And we got an occasional smell.

Spoke to a plumber/friend and he suggested we get these new trap thingos - bit like a longish sock with a hole at either end. Apparently they touch - enter - the water at the bottom and stop any bacteria/crap building - thus stop any smell and bacteria getting onto our covers.

I'd been blamed for getting the covers dirty - apparently my sandals were destroying them ...

This guy suggested it was the bacteria getting onto the metal. His gadgets prevent this.

Will be interesting to see how it works out.

A cheapish solution if it works.

I'm talking about that drain/trap you have in bathroom/toilet floors.

B STAR

Oct 23, 2014
10:12 am

One way to fix this by buying a solution which contains good bateria which you can add to the system. Master sell the product is is about $36 a litter in the watertank section. This will add good bateria to get rid of the bad ones which create smells.
Forgot the name but the liquid is blue and in a clear bottle.

Saint Mike

Oct 23, 2014
11:49 am

B STAR

One way to fix this by buying a solution which contains good bateria which you can add to the system. Master sell the product is is about $36 a litter in the watertank section. This will add good bateria to get rid of the bad ones which create smells.
Forgot the name but the liquid is blue and in a clear bottle.

Saint Mike

I'm no plumber ... but ... we had an issue with the "silver" round covers for the outlets in our bathrooms - they kept getting very dirty. And we got an occasional smell.

Spoke to a plumber/friend and he suggested we get these new trap thingos - bit like a longish sock with a hole at either end. Apparently they touch - enter - the water at the bottom and stop any bacteria/crap building - thus stop any smell and bacteria getting onto our covers.

I'd been blamed for getting the covers dirty - apparently my sandals were destroying them ...

Forgot to add - you add a few drops of pine'o'clean to them every month or so.

This guy suggested it was the bacteria getting onto the metal. His gadgets prevent this.

Will be interesting to see how it works out.

A cheapish solution if it works.

I'm talking about that drain/trap you have in bathroom/toilet floors.

Forgot to add - you add a few drops of pine'o'clean to them every month or so.

B STAR

Oct 23, 2014
12:34 pm

If your going to use pino clean then this work in the opposite way by killing all bacteria good and bad.
I had a new house and I had a problem from day one so i researched everything. Cleaning the toilets with strong blench made the issue worse. I was running off tank water which seemed to make things worse. It was ok when I switched to mains. Anyway bought this product and over time the issue got better and better. It had the biggest effect when I used it before going away for a few days.

Saint Mike

Oct 24, 2014
7:25 am

B STAR

If your going to use pino clean then this work in the opposite way by killing all bacteria good and bad.
I had a new house and I had a problem from day one so i researched everything. Cleaning the toilets with strong blench made the issue worse. I was running off tank water which seemed to make things worse. It was ok when I switched to mains. Anyway bought this product and over time the issue got better and better. It had the biggest effect when I used it before going away for a few days.

True - but I did say a few drops.

B STAR

Oct 24, 2014
7:55 am

fyi
https://envirofluid.com/worksafe-enviro ... nviroclear