Smell in main bathroom

whitelightrider

Folks,

Have noticed lately a smell in the main bathroom. Spoke to a friend and he said he gets the same thing if the bath is not used for a while and to just run water into it. He said its stale water in the pipe.

Just wondering if anyone can recommend something to put down the pipe to kill the smell, or could it be a bigger problem? Nothing seems to be blocked.

KTRIC

We have the same problem in one of bathrooms that isn't used.

Only solution I found was running the taps and flushing the toilet. Tried drain cleaner etc, smell came back.

whitelightrider

KTRIC wrote: »

We have the same problem in one of bathrooms that isn't used.

Only solution I found was running the taps and flushing the toilet. Tried drain cleaner etc, smell came back.

Tried the same thing. This bathroom is the main one used, but the bath is not used all the time. I even tried keeping the stopper in the bath hoping the smell would stay away.

Joey the lips

Nothing works better than running the water,Just to help a little You are missing the problem which is why you think the cleaner will work.

What happens is you have a "U" bend of sorts in your bathroom. what its function, it provides a trap to hold water. This water then acts as a barrier to prevent smell coming up out of the sewer. Putting cleaner down only freshens the water which serves no purpose. The best thing to do is run your tap once a week. Set a reminder on your phone.

This is a new age 3 bathroom with 2 adults in the house problem but its nothing serious and more common in summer when humidity is high thus causing the evaporation of water, I know of a plumber who charged 50 euro to fix this problem. He justified it as being a call out for a waste of time.

whitelightrider

Joey the lips wrote: »

Nothing works better than running the water,Just to help a little You are missing the problem which is why you think the cleaner will work.

What happens is you have a "U" bend of sorts in your bathroom. what its function, it provides a trap to hold water. This water then acts as a barrier to prevent smell coming up out of the sewer. Putting cleaner down only freshens the water which serves no purpose. The best thing to do is run your tap once a week. Set a reminder on your phone.

This is a new age 3 bathroom with 2 adults in the house problem but its nothing serious and more common in summer when humidity is high thus causing the evaporation of water, I know of a plumber who charged 50 euro to fix this problem. He justified it as being a call out for a waste of time.

Cheers Joey. Ill run the taps each night for a few mins to see if the smell lessens.

itsallaboutme!!

have the same problem with our main bathroom which is never used. I have tried using various different products to stop it happening but running the taps and flushing the loo seems to work the best.

Joey the lips

whitelightrider wrote: »

Cheers Joey. Ill run the taps each night for a few mins to see if the smell lessens.

No problem give it a day cause if your like my wife you are still convinced you can smell it and its gone its just old smells.

If the smell is still there you may have a more serious problem

portumna

When the bath isn't used for a while the trap (U-bend) dries out and smells are able to come through. If you just run the water for a few seconds every week then it won't dry out and the smells won't come through.

KTRIC

Joey the lips wrote: »

Nothing works better than running the water,Just to help a little You are missing the problem which is why you think the cleaner will work.

What happens is you have a "U" bend of sorts in your bathroom. what its function, it provides a trap to hold water. This water then acts as a barrier to prevent smell coming up out of the sewer. Putting cleaner down only freshens the water which serves no purpose. The best thing to do is run your tap once a week. Set a reminder on your phone.

This is a new age 3 bathroom with 2 adults in the house problem but its nothing serious and more common in summer when humidity is high thus causing the evaporation of water, I know of a plumber who charged 50 euro to fix this problem. He justified it as being a call out for a waste of time.

Great post ,


Thanks

waraf

A friend of mine had a funny smell in his bathroom for months. He had professionals in looking at drains and he even redecorated only to discover that the smell was coming from the stale water in the bottom of his toothbrush holder. :pac:

Joey the lips

KTRIC wrote: »

Great post ,


Thanks

Thank you. I should have said run the taps and toilet and shower. all the taps as it applies to all unused bathroom outlets. It is not necessary to run the hot tap.

Another problem I have encountered is clogged up shower tray causin smell. A shower tray countains what is called an easy clean head, You pop the grid up with a pen or something not sharp. The inside pulls out and you clean all the gunk. A 10 second job a plumber will charge 50 for, Drop into a builders providers and ask them to show you how the traps work. obv pretend that the plumber is buying all the materials there for you new manision and you just want to instruct the cleaners how to clean the trap.

whitelightrider

waraf wrote: »

A friend of mine had a funny smell in his bathroom for months. He had professionals in looking at drains and he even redecorated only to discover that the smell was coming from the stale water in the bottom of his toothbrush holder. :pac:

Definitely not the toothbrush holder. My wife regularly cleans that out, and makes sure I know shes done it!!!!

trinitylucan

I have a similar problem with our bath which is regularly in use so I don't think it is drying out.

I changed all the seals on the 'U' bend to ensure it wasn't leaking and I don't think it is. Its quite a shallow 'U' bend though and I don't think I can fit a deeper one between the bottom of the bath and the floor.

Any ideas on this?

GK

Joey the lips

trinitylucan wrote: »

I have a similar problem with our bath which is regularly in use so I don't think it is drying out.

I changed all the seals on the 'U' bend to ensure it wasn't leaking and I don't think it is. Its quite a shallow 'U' bend though and I don't think I can fit a deeper one between the bottom of the bath and the floor.

Any ideas on this?

GK

You cannot get a deeper one. Just run the water as above.. Yours is a common problem especially as baths are not used much now.

Stevie Dakota

http://www.hepvo.com/

Joey the lips

Luca Full Veil wrote: »

We had a problem like this in one of the bathrooms, when the toilet was flushed it would suck water from the trap (is that what its called) in the shower tray and the smell would run up.

We got a durger valve I think it was called along the pipe that took water from the shower. It is hard to explain how it works but when the jax flushes now it cant suck water from the trap in the shower and no smell comes up.

This is different than whats happening. You were getting siphoning. A DURGO valve will help solve this or simply propper outside ventaliation.

Stevie Dakota wrote: »

http://www.hepvo.com/

Good idea stevie but why fix whats not broken out of curiosity. The old trap costs about 3 euro and is easy to fit and never gives trouble,

Stevie Dakota

Joey the lips wrote: »

Good idea stevie but why fix whats not broken out of curiosity. The old trap costs about 3 euro and is easy to fit and never gives trouble,

We had the same problem in a shower that was rarely used. Despite running water quite frequently the smell kept coming back, we had a durgo fitted which solved the problem of the toilet pulling the water out of the shower trap, but normal evaporation still caused the smell to return.

The Hep valve solved it once and for all, cheap to buy and easy to fit, I think they are a great solution.

mad m

Just to add to the great advise, if you have a shower tray lets say, and you pull up the easy clean trap to get rid of the hairs etc, make sure you push it fully back down or there won't be a seal, you will get a smell if its not pushed down fully....