Smelly Bathroom …

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?

Comments

  • +25

    Have you checked your floor waste and replenished the trap with water? And no, you can't vacuum liquids with those appliances.

    • 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

      • +2

        If no odour emanating from the floor waste that's not the culprit. I mentioned because it often is.

        • +1

          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

          • +8

            @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.

              • @sumyungguy: I'll say. My bathroom floor waste goes to an open pipe (i.e pipe not connected) in the kitchen ceiling!

            • @Scrooge McDuck: This was the cause for me in the past.

            • @Scrooge McDuck:

              It's the same for all drains inside the house

              Also outside! It's why your overflow relief gullies should have a tap installed above/near them :)

      • +6

        Pour a couple of buckets of cold water down there.

        • Done. Will wait to see if that fixed it. Thank you

  • +36

    stop waffle stomping down the drain …

    • +5

      I had to google that lol

      • I only discovered what this was a few years ago after googling it too!

        • +1

          Just to think, you were missing out all those years.

    • -2

      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

  • +3

    Whole bottle (1l) of vinegar down the floor waste, followed with a bucket of boiling poured quickly. Should do the trick!

  • +1

    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.

    • +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.

        • +3

          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.

        • -2

          He can always get some kefir from inner city Melbourne and pour it down the drain where it belongs. Or better still, to keep his neighbours' older pipes safe and take one for the team he can inject his pipes with something 'proven' by the $cience to be 'safe and effective'.

  • +1

    Sometimes the pipes under the bathroom are laid at incorrect angles and water sits there stinking away.

    • +1

      WTF? Plumbers NEVER make mistakes. Hence the rates they charge.
      /s

  • +6

    If you are going to try using a vacuum, you need to use a wet/dry vacuum, not an ordinary one

    • +1

      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.

  • +11

    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.

  • +4

    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.

    • Works good. Took me 4 out of the 6 bottles I bought to get the job done. I used one at a time over a few daysand finally one day I heard a loud gurgling coming from under the shower and the ankle deep water I was standing in whooshed down the drain. Been good now for 18 months.

    • I'm involved with the management of several thousand properties

      This is true blue Mum and Dad investor Aussie battler advice.

  • +1

    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…

  • +1

    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.

  • +1

    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

  • +4

    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…

    • +1

      I thought it the chemical reaction is what cleans and unclogs etc.. how do you think they should be applied then?

      • +1

        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.

    • +2

      The chemical process that takes place between the two creates foaming bubbles that are fantastic at cleaning and neutralising the smells.

    • +1

      I often see this recommendation and it always baffles me and wonder why I never see sodium acetate as an ingredient in cleaning agents.

  • +8

    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…

    • Seconding this.

      Had smelly bathroom for months, tried the enzymes with hot water and it did the trick.

  • 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.

    • +8

      "If the smell keeps returning, someone might be weeing in the shower. "

      Doesn't everyone?

    • +1

      I have been waffle stomping for years and the drains smell fine.

      • +3

        You probably have a blocked nose.

      • HAHAA. Second reference to waffle stomping in this thread. I first thought it was related to some weird fetish relating to eating waffles in the shower.

  • 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.

  • +1

    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?

  • -5

    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.

  • +1

    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.

  • +3

    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

    • Yep, surprised more people aren't mentioning this. The seal on your toilet (down near the floor) breaking down is a likely culprit for unpleasant smells.

  • +2

    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

  • +1

    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.

  • +2

    Is this an ensuite bathroom? If it has a toilet it may be the seal for the toilet. I had this problem and the plumber removed the pan and found that there was a missing rubber o ring seal that keeps the gases from coming back up. It was not installed for one toilet and a second toilet it had slipped down so it did not seal properly.

  • +3

    Four places sewer smell can come from in a bathroom.

    1) Under sink plumbing, if the sink plumbing is not correct (incorrect p-trap installation) or p-trap has evaporated dry from extended non use.

    2) Toilet pan to plumbing seal - the toilet does not have a trap in the plumbing it relies on the water in the bowel

    3) Floor drain - if dry from non use (somethings in your bathroom likely feed into the floor drain - typically the bath and/or shower).

    4) A leaking vent pipe under the sink (I'm not sure that's a thing in Aust - code might not allow it) - they have a one way valve which can fail and leak - I've never seen one in Australia, only online.

    Neither the bath or shower should allow any smell up as they are usually protected by a trap (see item 3).

  • call a plumber man

  • If you have a flush in the bathroom, its seal might be cracked where the flush attaches to the floor. Sorry I don't know how to explain it better.
    I am pretty confident its going to be that.

  • I know this is gross, but it's something I found out living with a person who would piss while taking a shower…… don't do it

  • Ours was smelling a bit, and it was the seal that was gone around the base of the cistern. Call your plumber, it's a quick job for them.

  • Bleach damages plastics and seals, wouldn't recommend it for PVC pipes.

    • Bleach will not affect PVC pipes. It may harm other types of plastic but not PVC or polyurethane.

  • Sometimes you need a lot of volume to get through a partial blockage that could be doing the smell.

    Get a couple buckets of warm water ready next to the drain. Open all taps and turn on the shower and let them all run for a minute or two. Then (with the taps still running) pour the buckets in quickly one after the other. All the volume and weight/pressure of the water should load up all the pipes with water and the pressure should dislodge any partial blockage.

    If you have a bath, fill that too and unplug it and run it at the same time as pouring the buckets down.

  • every pipe should have an S trap or P trap, the floor waste in the middle of the room also has one, so does the toilet, this is to prevent the smell from reaching you, one of them have a problem, we cant guess it for you, you need to contact a plumber and have him check each one

  • Funnily enough I uploaded a 3d print design, was experiencing same problem myself, might help!

    https://makerworld.com/models/1072420

    • what happens when the little flap goes down the drain?

      • It's weighted to auto close, think of it like covering your drain, see the other images. You connect it together cannot fall. It opens to allow water through then closes when no weight. Works really well

  • Like others have said, pour water to all drain holes in your home.

    I had a similar issue in a brand new apartment building. It most likely because the units adjacent to me were still empty and it has gone since the units are occupied.

  • +1

    It is so easy to just unscrew the u piece of the drain off, it will be full of brown mold and crap, then just clean it out. Pouring cold water down the drain wont to anything. Can also buy a cheap bendable long drain brush from Temu for a few bucks

  • my plumber recommended one of the ryobi wet vacs from bunnings - cost us ~$40. It's what he uses, beaten up and still going.

  • Do you hear any bubbling on occasion? I'm not sure how, but in a previous house we had issues where the council drainage would occasionally block and cause some type of stinky gas to bubble back up through the toilet..

  • Your wax ring could be broken. Or get a silicone sealant around it if you don't want to change the wax seal.

  • Take the cap off. Stick your arm down the pipe.. dont force it to be suction tight lol… so it doesnt get stuck… pull out the stinky, gooey jelly hair ball mess thats down there..
    Then use drain cleaner/ bacteria killer.

    Smell will go away

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