• I'm trying to avoid ripping my bathroom out, but I probably have to for a lot of reasons.

    One of the reasons is that it smells of drains when the window isn't open. The smell is worst from inside the bulkhead that contains the toilet waste pipe and the shower bilge pump.

    I think the issue could be one or more of:

    1. Shower bilge pump stinks. But it should be a sealed system, and it appears to work (I've been told that if the seals fail, it stops working).
    2. Gap/open joint in the toilet waste pipe (downstream of the u-bend, upstream of the connection to the soil vent pipe). The toilet flushes fine, so I believe the vent pipe isn't blocked externally.
    3. Durgo (air admittance) valve stuck open somewhere behind the walls. I don't see how this can be the case though, as the shower bilge pump syphons the basin trap, implying that there isn't a hidden vent on that, and I think that the toilet is connected to the soil vent pipe therefore not using a durgo valve.
    4. Cracked external sewer pipe somewhere below the ground, allowing foul odours to come up through the building foundations.

    I want to make sure it's not (4) from the list above. How to confirm? Smoke or air pressure tests might be difficult because the drainage system (external) is shared with another flat. And to make it worse, the drainage system doesn't have any external manholes, just gullies. Even the disconnecting manhole (between private and public sewer systems) is concealed below driveway finishes.

    If I pay to have a new bathroom put in, and there's an issue somewhere below the foundations of the building, I will be gutted.

    Any advice?

    Edit: having written this out, it occurs to me that the external drainage is likely below ground but not actually below the building. So I think the answer might just be crack on and have a new bathroom installed. However it would still be nice to figure out the cause of the issue

  • Both waste traps?
    Ours were full of horrors due to long hair, which as a baldy was still down to me to fix.
    Only way was to unscrew and get at the ‘matter’

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