Awful Smells

[DarrellS]

Last year I replaced my bathroom suite and when I did this I cut out the top of the waste, you know the piece that goes off up through the roof, and put a Durgo Valve on the remaining waste pipe in the bathroom. Now If I don't use the sinks/bath/shower for any small period of time I seem to get some pretty pungent smells around the house that appear to emanate from the sinks etc. I've also noticed that I get quite a lot of gurgling in the wastes from the sinks/bath and shower upstairs in the house but not so much from the sinks downstairs. Can anyone help me resolve this issue. Is it likely that I have a blokage in the waste from the house outwards?


Cheers

Darrell

 

[htgeng]

Yes. That top bit of the waste was going through the roof for a reason. You'll need to restore that section of pipe again if you want to get back to normal operation.

M

 

[DarrellS]

Thanks for the reply. That's a shame as I've used the remaning piece that goes out through the roof for the extractor fan in the en-suite I fitted recently !!!!! I wonder if I can tee off of it somehow. Then the problem I will have is the smell coming back through the fan in the en-suite I suppose. Any ideas???

 

[PTH]

Durgo valves are meant to be an air admiittance device - that is they let air into the stack or waste pipe when a negative pressure is developed. If smells are coming out it means that the seal is u/s - usually because of dust or dirt - they don't seem to work properly for much more than a year or so. I've never tried taking one apart to clean it, but it may be possible.

You could try to construct some sort of concentric exhaust, but beware that both the soil vent and the extract exhaust will be reduced in efficiency by being restricted.
Additionally, the systems will be operating at varying differential pressures so you will have to make sure they are well seperated by sealing all joints properly.
As an alternative you could do the job properly and cut a new hole for one of the systems.

...or buy some pegs for your nose.

 

[DarrellS]

Well I did reinstate the soil stack as PTH suggested but still the smells keep coming. Could this be due to the fact that I have removed the box section around the soil stack and the smells are permiating back up through the gap left. Does that make sense anyone

 

[htgeng]

when you replaced your bathroom did you move or modify any of the bath/basin waste pipes

 

[DarrellS]

Htgeng,
Yes I moved my bathroom around though the toilet stayed in it's original place, the sink swapped ends with the bath. At the same time I added an en-suite to my bedroom so the waste from the sink and the shower cubicle run into the same 40mm pipe work that leads to the soil stack. Why ?

 

[djbunny]

your waste lengths are probaly too long for size of pipe, you need to fit anti-vac traps or anti-vac tee's as the waste water is syponing out the traps water

 

[DarrellS]

Thanks DJbunny. Would i get away with fitting an in line vac trap on the final run to the soil stack do you think ?

 

[djbunny]

no it needs to be furthest point really or the offending basin/bath

 

[htgeng]

You can get 'mini' durgos for 40mm waste pipes. You could see which traps are getting sucked dry and install one close to that section of pipe.

But that is not a dead cert cure. You should have gone to larger waste or installed another stack.

 

[DarrellS]

Cheers Guys,
I spoke with one of the plumbing "experts" from B&Q and he assured me that as i was only, in effect, adding another 5 feet of waste to the original installation I should be ok. The smells are coming from both the bathroom area and the en-suite but I also noticed that I am getting some less obvious smells back through the kitchen sink as well.
In the kitchen I have both a dishwasher and washing machine along with the sink going into the same waste. This was installed by a plumber who i had to physically remove from my premises when he tried to stripe me on the price, £278 to fit 3 pieces of waste pipe and a new gas fitment for the cooker when he'd agreed on £150 cash.

So any thoughts you have are more than welcomed.