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A couple of years ago, after a bout of significant rainfall 3 of the cottages in our row had what we thought was a gas leak smell.
SGN came round to investigate and said straight off that they thought it was sewer smells, not a gas leak, and just keep the windows open.
It happened a couple of times more, not quite as much of a smell, but the same, and after heavy rainfall.
Today it's been the same, it's been relatively dry, then lots of heavy rain, house smells like gas.
Checked with neighbours and they are the same, gassy smell.
Seems to be dissipating now, but wondering really what could be done. Scottish water were contacted last time, checked the sewer wasn't blocked and just said keep the windows open.
Should we be expecting more from them? Seems odd it impacts 3 of the cottages.
The underfloors are connected between, so there's relatively free passage of air under all of them, so it's feasible that there's a leak in one of the cottages waste pipes, but I'd think that any vapours and smells should just vent from the vent pipes at the back of each cottage.
Any chance of looking under the floor? Might be flooding in heavy rain. Or something has died down there 🤔
Septic tank? Sometimes, if the u bends dry out through lack of use, shower trays, sink plugholes etc, you can get a bit of a whiff. Run some water, you never know?
Have any of your toilets or u-bends gone dry?
If it really chucks it down the volume of water going down the sewer at the back of our house can create enough of a vacuum to pull the water sitting in the downstairs loo round the bend so there's no water trap and it can get a bit stinky.
Have any of your toilets or u-bends gone dry?
If it really chucks it down the volume of water going down the sewer at the back of our house can create enough of a vacuum to pull the water sitting in the downstairs loo round the bend so there’s no water trap and it can get a bit stinky.
I get the same issue if either of the other houses on the joint septic tank drain the bath and (for instance) flush the toilet at the same time. Slightly whiffy downstairs bathroom until i fill the u bends. It's happening more often now the chap over the road has his girlfriend and kids there.
I would guess its much worse for them when i drain the bath, as i'm higher than them.
One of the houses might have a disconnect soil pipe under the floor if they've rearranged a bathroom.
Yeah..shared drainage is generally the water companies remit...
But if some one has botched something within thier house, and that's affecting adjoining houses... could get messy.
Should we be expecting more from them? Seems odd it impacts 3 of the cottages.
Ask them to survey the drains, a camera should find the problem if it's in the pipework
We had whiffy drains for a couple of years, Northumbria water were no help, couldn't even provide us with a definitive plan of the drains on our property (connected to next door).
We had our drains checked and were given the all clear. Spoke to neighbours and they had the same problem, but significantly worse, smells all the way through the house.
Eventually they had DynoRod around and it was a fault with their drain (Cracked/badly laid under a deck and patio...). Once repaired the smells vanished immediately.
Thanks all.
Main sewer connection, so no septic tank. Only really noticed it over the last few years, with one more addition to the sewer line. But that may just be coincidence.
Will contact Scottish water and see what they say.
It may well be something someone else has done as a bodge. The cottages were renovated to a degree before we moved in. We were one of the first in so know the standard of workmanship that was going on with the rest.
Weirdly, it doesn't smell like poop, nor particularly sulphury either, it's quite gas like, but not gas.
Dodgy or missing air admission valve in the stack? The stack on the east side of our house doesn’t have a vent and so glug glugs down and then burps. Utterly foul and on the list for fixing.
Our soil stack terminates just above the guttering. Has a thing on top, doesn't look like a debris type stopper, but something else, possibly to do the same job.
Bathroom is downstairs, toilet doesn't glug, so I assume it's balancing ok.
Houses lower down from us have to have a non return valve on appliances, wc mainly. Surface water run off is too much so overloads the system further downstream, sewage pump is not big enough to get waste water away so pressure backs up.
Does whiff a bit in that area post heavy rain as raw sewage backs up.
You are right though, sewage and gas smell v similar.