Bathroom Sewage Got You Down? It’s Time To Call The Experts

Posted by Hy-Pro Plumbing & Drain Cleaning on May 13/2015 | 0 Comments

Having Bathroom Sewage Problems?

Discovering bathroom sewage in your home is never a nice welcoming. Washrooms are places to feel clean and renewed or places to relax and unwind. But when your comforting bath, rejuvenating shower or daily scrub are accompanied by the rank smell of sewage, gas, or waste, you’ll quickly start wondering if you can fit yourself into your kitchen sink! You’ll also find yourself reluctant to invite guests into the home — you don’t want to be associated with a stinky, sewer-smelling bathroom, do you?

A Quick Fix

If you detect a gross smell coming from the bathroom, it’s time to start thinking about calling HY-PRO Plumbing and Drain Cleaning — but you can do a few tests first to make sure that the problem can’t be solved with a quick fix. Regardless of what’s causing the odor, know that prolonged exposure to certain sewer-based gasses — methane and hydrogen sulfide in particular — can cause health and safety issues if left unimpeded.

With a lot of gas hanging around, the air can become combustible, so you’ll want to avoid turning on electrical switches or using lighters and matches. If you’re working in a room with a strong smell, you should try to open as many windows as possible; if this isn’t feasible, grab a ventilation mask to avoid respiratory problems, wooziness, or being knocked out (or worse). A mask that fits over your eyes will also prevent severe irritation.

Always conduct a very thorough clean of the room to make sure there isn’t something obvious causing the smell. Then you can begin searching in earnest.

Pipes In Your Bathroom

Pipes from your sink, bathtub, and toilet lead to the main line that runs from the sewer through your bathroom and then up through the roof of your house. Stinky air from the sewer rises up and escapes into the air above your home, and is prevented from entering your bathroom through a nifty little well of water that rests in the U-shaped pipe under your sink.

Each time you run the bath or sink, a little bit of water stays in this section of pipe (called the P trap) and acts as a barrier between you and the sewer. The water that sits in your toilet bowl does the same thing. So if the foul smell is coming from the sewer, it either means the water in the P-trap has evaporated (often the case in infrequently used bathrooms), you’ve got a crack in the main line that runs up to the roof, the roof vent is blocked (by nests, debris, or leaves), or it was improperly installed. Conversely, the P trap could be cracked and leaking, allowing the stink to come through.

Foul smells don’t always hail from the sewer, though. Biological slime (composed of hair, soap, shampoo, skin, and other bodily and cosmetic residue) can clog drains and pipes and become a real stinky problem that not all snakes and drain cleaners can fix. Your drain pipe can also stink if its wax seal becomes cracked; moreover, if your floors are cracked, water can seep below and make the damp wooden floorboards start reeking to high heaven. On the other hand, you could have a leak somewhere in your toilet …

Call A Professional

To help you discover the source of the offending odor and to get rid of it for good, always call our licensed and insured plumbers. We’re used to awful smells, gunky buildups, and cracks, clogs, and blockages of all types. There’s nothing we haven’t seen, so stop suffering with a gross, possibly harmful gas: call us today and we’ll have you breathing fresh air once again.