Why Does My Floor Drain Smell Like Sewer

Once you ve identified where the odor is.

Why does my floor drain smell like sewer.

Thorough cleaning of the shower drain and fixing the plumbing problems usually gets rid of the bad smell. All you need to do is run the water for several seconds to refill the trap then wait a little while to see if the odor goes away. If you look under a sink in your house you will notice the curving section of pipe called the trap. Sewer smells in your bathroom can result from a few different issues so you ll need to spend a bit of time in the room to sniff out the source.

Eliminating sewer odor from shower or bathtub drains. When a shower drain smells like sewer gas there s probably rotting debris draining problems or general plumbing issues. The vinegar and baking soda also make a great tub cleaner. When investigating sewer gas odors in buildings we have often traced these smells to an un trapped floor drain.

Every drain in your house including your washing machine s drain pipe has a trap designed to help keep sewer gasses from reaching the drain opening. Strong sewage smells in the house may originate from several locations and then spread throughout your home leaving it smelling like a septic system. Remove the grate that covers the opening and make sure there s a plug inside the drain bowl. The trap will stay full of water at any given time unless a leak in the pipe occurs.

We have removed the floor drain cover to take a look into the drain piping. We also describe this problem at sewage pump odors. For floor drains you can do this by slowly pouring in a bucket of water. A dry p trap and short vent pipes can cause rotten egg like smell in the bathroom.

If the plug is missing there s a direct path for sewer gas to bypass the water trap. Some of these anaerobic bacteria live in fetid water in the p trap and produce hydrogen sulfide gas which smells like sewage. As you can see below the floor drain does not appear to have a trap installed. There are several common causes of these smells.

You hop in the shower to get fresh and clean not to smell something gross coming from the drain smells in a shower drain can be caused by odor causing bacteria that feed on debris in the pipe. If the culprit isn t a dry water trap there s a chance that a stinky biofilm has built up inside the offending drain pipe. A strong sewer smell coming from your basement is most often caused from a dried out floor drain a bad ejector pit seal improperly vented appliances or fixtures or even a damaged sewer line. Here are four areas in your home that sewer smells may be coming from and the reasons for the smells.

Baking soda and vinegar are the kings of cleaning and may work well enough alone if your shower drain smells like. If you discover that the sewage smell is coming from your shower or bathtub try using this natural drain cleaner.