On of the bathrooms started to smell a bit. I suspect it is coming from the main drain.
Tried baking soda and vinegar and also Draino. Smell comes back after a couple of days.
I think I will have to use a vacuum to get the shit out of there.
Now I have two pretty expensive vacuums. A miele and dyson stick. Should i buy cheapest vacuum for this task and then throw it away? Or use one of my vacuums then give it a clean?
Any other less messy or less expensive solutions maybe?
Floor waste as in waste on the bathroom floor? It is sparkling clean.
And yeah tried to replenish with hot water but I will try that again maybe with more water this time. Thank you
If no odour emanating from the floor waste that's not the culprit. I mentioned because it often is.
Sorry I just realised what ‘floor waste’ means. I thought you meant literally the waste on the bathroom floor. My bad.
Yeah it does seem it is coming from the floor waste drain. I did what you suggested and poured a lot of water quickly in their last night. I think it did fix the issue but will wait a couple of days to see if the smell is gone before trying other methods.
Thank you
@Save 50 Cent: The trap is a U bend which traps a volume of water between your bathroom and the sewerage network. If you don't have water running into it for a long time the water can evaporate completely. If that happens sewer gas can come back up from the sewerage network into your bathroom. It's the same for all drains inside the house.
@Scrooge McDuck: Basin waste is supposed to run into floor waste but sadly there's plenty of dodgy installs around.
Pour a couple of buckets of cold water down there.
Done. Will wait to see if that fixed it. Thank you
stop waffle stomping down the drain …
I had to google that lol
The correct term for this type of drain is "poo stomper".
pressure washer flush it out (I am not a plumber)
works. i did that lol
Whole bottle (1l) of vinegar down the floor waste, followed with a bucket of boiling poured quickly. Should do the trick!
You may not like this answer but at work only bleach was able to solve this problem.
Vinegar didn't do anything.
Just pour maybe 1/5 of the bleach bottle and then check back in an hour.
If it still smelling pour another 1/4.
Why wouldn’t I like that? Sounds like a cheap and easy thing to try. Thank you
Oh I can't remember precisely but I remember some others maybe saying it is a bad idea for the pipes maybe or something I honestly can't remember.
But yeah if bleach does not work then honestly no idea what will minus trying to just fill the pipe with water and maybe blocking the sewer smells.
Good luck.
it's no good for septic, but mains sewer doesn't matter
.
Bleach kills the biota that kills the smells. You will get worse smells soon after if you overdo the treatment, and it takes yonks for the septic to recover and rebuild.These smells get worse in summer as the gases vent off and sometimes odours can creep back up the pipe work network.
Sometimes the pipes under the bathroom are laid at incorrect angles and water sits there stinking away.
WTF? Plumbers NEVER make mistakes. Hence the rates they charge.
/s
If you are going to try using a vacuum, you need to use a wet/dry vacuum, not an ordinary one
Calling a plumber would be cheaper and more productive than your vacuum idea. Can’t believe our votes are worth the same.
I only thought of vacuuming it because I remember a long time ago in my previous place, i called a plumber for a similar issue and he ended up vacuuming the drain and asking for $350.
But all good.. keep thinking you are smarter than everyone else around you mate.
Put a couple of litres of water in every drain in the room, the bath, the shower, the vanity basin, the floor waste, the laundry tub. The smell often comes from the drain that isn’t used in summer.
Sorry posted directly from google, use this : https://www.amazon.com.au/Drano-Bathroom-Drain-Cleaner-770mL…
I'm involved with the management of several thousand properties, this never lets us down.
Try this first to remove any hair that may be clogging the pipe, then use hot water
https://www.bunnings.com.au/kinetic-40cm-sink-drain-unblocke…
Take out the drain cap, use tongs to reach down and pick up whatever gunk is in there. Hold your breath while you're doing it.
The drain is too deep. At least 1 metre.
https://www.bunnings.com.au/kinetic-4-5m-auger-easy-turn-dra…
I have an ebay 12m version that is driven by drill (it also has more cutter tools)
.
make sure you pour water down ever drain hole you see eg sinks, shower, bath, next to toilet, i have never not been able to fix this smell by just turning on all water and pouring down all drains
Tried baking soda and vinegar
High school level chemistry tells me that if you tried these at the same time/mixed them, then all they did was neutralise each other…
I thought it the chemical reaction is what cleans and unclogs etc.. how do you think they should be applied then?
Vinegar for cleaning/killing. Baking soda (mixed with a small amount of water into a paste) for abrasion. Use it by itself for odour removal, though you need to eliminate the source of the odour first otherwise it won't go away.
Mix the two together and you get salty water.
Let it be for a week ,or so, to settle down (from all the experiments you've been doing) and then gets some dedicated enzymes made to eat the build up of the dead stinky residue.It will slowly fix in and balance it out.You also may have a lot of dead hair and skin 'fatbergs' in the pipes.Enzymes will help with that.They stink as bacterial processes are involved chowing down on them
eg (choose the one you need)
https://www.bunnings.com.au/drain-clean-1l-liquid-enzyme-dra…
https://www.bunnings.com.au/drain-clean-100g-active-enzyme-p…
https://www.bunnings.com.au/drain-clean-1l-septic-tank-treat…
suspect it is coming from the main drain
What scientific process did you use to deduce this theory?
If the smell keeps returning, someone might be weeing in the shower. Try flushing the drain with a large volume of water (a bucket or two should do it) to clear it out. Pouring a bucket of water all at once works better than running the shower. Afterward, pour some diluted bleach down the drain and leave the bathroom window open for a couple of hours.
If you have used vinegar to clean the drain, you must flush the drain with a good amount of water before pouring diluted bleach. Never mix bleach with acid.
"If the smell keeps returning, someone might be weeing in the shower. "
Doesn't everyone?
Maybe it's the difference between "in the shower" and "while showering"?
It's all pipes, what's the difference!?
Does anyone in your family use flushable wipes? These can block up the pipes and/or cause smells throughout the pipe system. I live in a ground floor apartment and constantly had smells from the pipes. Once body corporate advised everyone not to use the wipes that aren’t biodegradable or they would be charged plumbers fees to fix it, the smells miraculously stopped.
Don't suck, blow.
If you have a gerni or similar, spend <$50 and get one of these.
Has saved me a ton in plumber call out fees
Did you mix the baking soda and vinegar together?
After flushing floor drain, pour 50ml of cooking oil or any other light oil. This will stop the evapouration of water from the trap and any odour coming up.
i had this problem with an unused bathroom.
got some of these https://grateseal.com.au/
still put water down every so often to keep the trap full.
I had this very same problem. Came and went every couple of days.
Turns out the seal around my toilet bowl/basin (the one you sh!t in) thing that connected it to waste had gotten old and no longer provided a complete seal.
Cost me $150 to get a plumber out and replace the problem part. If you're handy, you can remove it and inspect and put it back together, otherwise pay the $$$ and get a plumber
Not suggesting a vacuum, but if you do try it, make sure it's not a mains powered vac unless it's a wet vac
Don't have any solutions for you, but worst thing you can do to unclog things is bleach.
there are drain deodorizer sticks and powders you can get from Bunnings or Reject shop etc.
Have you checked your floor waste and replenished the trap with water? And no, you can't vacuum liquids with those appliances.