Bad smell from Master Bathroom / En-Suite

[Pgeddon]

Hi All,

I've got a recurring really bad/strong smell coming exclusively from the 1st floor Master Bathroom and En-suite (Ground floor and top floor bathrooms are fine!).

To help explain, I've added two photos showing the layout/setup below, in which i've tried to show the soil pipe layout too.


Back View

Birds eye View

I've had plumbers out to assess over the past couple weeks. On the first visit they changed all the traps on the sinks / showers in those rooms, and added / repaired extractor fans in there, but unfortunately the smell remained.

During the second visit, they found on that on the top floor where the soilpipe goes out through out the top of the roof to get venting, this section had a bad fall the wrong way and was entirely full of water. They drained (4buckets!) out of it and appropriately set the drop to fall back towards the vertical soil pipe. Interestingly this made the smell go away for a day in the Master Bathroom and Ensuite, but very frustratingly it's returned now.....

Lastly to show where the smell is coming from and better show the layout & soilpipe intricacies in better detail, i've made a few minutes long video with some commentary too, hopefully this describes it better.



We're running out of ideas so wanted to make a post to hopefully get some help on what to try next. Really appreciate any suggestions / guidance that anyone can offer, running out of ideas here and the smell is unbearable :-(

thanks,

P

 

[WC1]

Option 1. Is the smell in the draught air coming out the first box, it could be the dead rat smell tracking up through box work. Where the dead rats were can you spray something smelly eg deodorant , plenty of. Then run up to the box behind the wc where you can feel the draught. See if the deo smell comes out there.

Option 2 The temporary resolution from reworking the soil suggests an issue there. Did the pressure test the soil system? Edit , there may be another opening in the soil pipe like you had before.

3. It may have been a bit of both, imo the hardest problems to solve are when there are 2 problems hiding each other.

Suggest step 1. spraying something smelly down near where the break / dead rats was, were. Then have a sniff around the house and see if it comes out anywhere.

 

[Pwizzle]

Option 1. Is the smell in the draught air coming out the first box, it could be the dead rat smell tracking up through box work. Where the dead rats were can you spray something smelly eg deodorant , plenty of. Then run up to the box behind the wc where you can feel the draught. See if the deo smell comes out there.

Option 2 The temporary resolution from reworking the soil suggests an issue there. Did the pressure test the soil system? Edit , there may be another opening in the soil pipe like you had before.

3. It may have been a bit of both, imo the hardest problems to solve are when there are 2 problems hiding each other.

Suggest step 1. spraying something smelly down near where the break / dead rats was, were. Then have a sniff around the house and see if it comes out anywhere.

Thanks for the reply and suggestions, it is hard to trace and im trying to not conflate the issues incase there are two separate things going on here like you said. If I just blame it on a previous dead corpse I may never find the other underlying problem if there is one.

RE Option 1. - My gut doubts it's any smell from any dead rodents i found beneath the ground floor for a few reasons.

I've already sprayed the rodent disenfectant everywhere down there a few days ago, it's got an incredibly strong smell to it. Very distinctive. Everywhere on the groundfloor that smelled like dead rodent now smells nice / or of the disenfectant. No trace of bad smell down there anymore as of a full week.

The dead rodent was found right at the front of the property, as far away from the soilpipe as possible. and When I go down to beneath the suspended floor where the soil pipe is, there's no trace of bad smell there at all.

As far as i can see the boxing for the vertical soil stack is packed full of insulation. So wonder how well smell could travel up there anyhow.


RE Option 2. - No testing was done with the rework of the soil pipe up stairs no, just laser lined and set so it falls back towards the vertical soil stack. What is the general procedure here? should it be flushed from the top?


Couple of other things I had in mind.

:- A friend suggested removing the manhole cover in the garden and put some wire mesh over it instead. He said if this stops the smell inside then you know it's coming from the sewer.... Is that valid and worth me giving it a shot?


:- In the video where I show in the boxing and to the right you can see the cavity beneath the En-suite floor, if the smell is coming from there, I guess It COULD be another dead rodent. Plan was to remove all that boxing in the master bathroom to investigate properly.

:- In the En-suite where the vertical soil stack comes down from the top floor, then has to travel horizontally right then down again to ground level. Could it be that rather than going down and right, it could be going down and LEFT towards the master bathroom soil pipe and getting stuck in there?

Sorry for the long post, and thanks for your help!

 

[Pgeddon]

Option 1. Is the smell in the draught air coming out the first box, it could be the dead rat smell tracking up through box work. Where the dead rats were can you spray something smelly eg deodorant , plenty of. Then run up to the box behind the wc where you can feel the draught. See if the deo smell comes out there.

Option 2 The temporary resolution from reworking the soil suggests an issue there. Did the pressure test the soil system? Edit , there may be another opening in the soil pipe like you had before.

3. It may have been a bit of both, imo the hardest problems to solve are when there are 2 problems hiding each other.

Suggest step 1. spraying something smelly down near where the break / dead rats was, were. Then have a sniff around the house and see if it comes out anywhere.

Thanks for the reply and suggestions, it is hard to trace and im trying to not conflate the issues incase there are two separate things going on here like you said. If I just blame it on a previous rodent corpse I may never find any other underlying problems if there are any.


RE Option 1. - My gut doubts it's any smell from any dead rodents i found beneath the ground floor for a few reasons.

• I've already sprayed the rodent disenfectant everywhere down there a few days ago, it's got an incredibly strong smell to it. Very distinctive. Everywhere on the groundfloor that smelled like dead rodent now smells nice / or of the disenfectant. No trace of bad smell down there anymore as of a full week.

• The dead rodent was found right at the front of the property a week ago, as far away from the soilpipe as possible. and When I go down to beneath the suspended floor where the soil pipe is, there's no trace of bad smell there at all.

• As far as i can see the boxing for the vertical soil stack is packed full of insulation. So wonder how well smell could travel up there anyhow.

RE Option 2. - No testing was done with the rework of the soil pipe up stairs no, just laser lined and set so it falls back towards the vertical soil stack. What is the general procedure here? should it be flushed from the top?


Couple of other things I had in mind.

• A friend suggested removing the manhole cover in the garden and put some wire mesh over it instead. He said if this stops the smell inside then you know it's coming from the sewer.... Is that valid and worth me giving it a shot?

• In the video where I show in the boxing in the master Bathroom.. and to the right you can see the cavity beneath the En-suite floor, if the smell is coming from there, I guess It COULD be another dead rodent. Plan was to remove all that soil pipe boxing in the master bathroom to investigate properly. Seem sensible?

• In the En-suite where the vertical soil stack comes down from the top floor, then has to travel horizontally right then down again to ground level. Could it be that rather than going down and right, it could be going down and LEFT towards the master bathroom soil pipe and getting stuck in there? Again if we remove the soil pipe boxing we should be able to investigate this better.

Sorry for the long post, and thanks for your help!

 

[WC1]

Perhaps Google drainage smoke test.
Don't do the wire mesh thing, it will likely be inconclusive and may badly injure someone.
I think a smoke test would be most useful.

 

[Pgeddon]

Perhaps Google drainage smoke test.
Don't do the wire mesh thing, it will likely be inconclusive and may badly injure someone.
I think a smoke test would be most useful.

Thanks - looking at videos now. Looking interesting,.

Are you suggesting smoke it to see if it comes out of the soilpipe box in the master bathroom?

 

[WC1]

Smoke to see where it comes from (probably via m/h) and where it comes out. May be more than outlet

 

[Pgeddon]

Will do thanks,

Bumping this and asking if anyone else has any suggestions based on the description / video above?

thanks,

P

 

[Pgeddon]

Update - having some renovations done at this property and when we removed the ceiling between the downstairs and the room where this horrendous smell was (still!) coming from. The builders found 3 dead rats, cue heaving and now finally relieved.

 

[Ben-gee]

Glad you sorted, pesky critters.
Usually the dead rat smell goes after a couple of months - once they have dried out so to speak .

This made me jump when I pulled back insulation in loft, but no smell!

 

[Pgeddon]

Glad you sorted, pesky critters.
Usually the dead rat smell goes after a couple of months - once they have dried out so to speak .View attachment 64900

This made me jump when I pulled back insulation in loft, but no smell!

oh I wish ours was that dry! It had rotted and started to go putrid.

Was a relief as i'd spent a small fortune having all the drains camera'd, moved manhole covers, smoke tested everything. Was starting to really run out of ideas!

RIP!