Sewage Smells Inside and Outside The Home

In a perfect world, all gases, liquids, and solids should be contained within your septic tank and pipes. You should not smell your septic tank or septic gases in your home.

When a customer calls with an odor problem, we try to help isolate the odor and give recommendations on what it could be. When it comes to odors, we have found it can be a matter of having to rule certain things out to determine the culprit.

OUTSIDE ODORS

If odors are detected in your yard, it may be coming from your secondary treatment (leach field, filter bed, mound) whatever type of system you have. If you notice wet areas, it could be ponding sewage and yes ponding sewage smells. You should have a professional look at any wet areas to see if repair can be done. Odors in yards can also come from the vent pipe on your roof. Over time trees grow up and block the airflow, just raising those vent pipes on your roof can alleviate the problem. Odors can also be caused by an aeration system or a system with a pump if those mechanical components are not working properly an odor will and can occur.

INSIDE ODORS

When you are getting an odor in the house, the first thing you need to determine is where are you smelling the odor at. If the odor is in the basement, we recommend that you check all the drains. Dump a bucket of water down any floor drains, especially drains that are not used regularly as they possibly could have a dry trap. If odors are coming from a bathroom, run water down all drains, a sink or shower that do not get used regularly are many times the source of the odor. Check the plumbing under the sink, if you have an old tin trap, you may want to have that replaced. If the odor seems to be coming from the toilet, it is possible that the wax seal has gone bad and needs to be replaced.

When you have tried everything and cannot find the source of the odor in the house, a smoke test can be done. A smoke bomb is set off in your tank and with a fan, smoke is blown through the pipes and into the house. Anywhere that smoke is detected is where odor can come from. A pinhole in a pipe can even allow odor through.

Give us a call at 440-636-5111 if you have questions or need to set up an appointment to have a professional look at your system or have a smoke test done.