]My problem started with a foul odor in my dishwasher. I have had all the venting in the house checked and the builder states that there is not a problem. I had the house built six years ago. This problem started about five months ago.
The odor I am narrowing down to, I do believe, the sludge in all of my pipes. My single stall shower has a fairly large drain and that is where you can really see it without removing any pipes. The black gunk is just horrible. We tore the pipes apart under the kitchen sink where the dishwasher drains into and every pipe had about a quarter inch thick of sludge on them. I did scrub them well but you can only reach so far into the drain system. I got Drano and then poured it down all of my drains to include the washing machine drain. I used the Drano on Saturday. Today when I ran a load of laundry, in the bottom of the washing machine, I found some of this loosened sludge! How this can happen is beyond me, but that is what I found. Not a lot but even just a bit that I found, would lead me to believe that that same stuff could get into my dish washer and cause the odor. The odor on my dishes when the dishwasher has completed it's cycles... is a sour smell. Quite strong I might add. I have public water. I guess my question at this point is this... should my drains have all this black gunk in them? Something I should add to this. The pipes under the kitchen sink, where the water runs through the pipes... that had no sludge... it was above the water line that the sludge was all built up. If this is a normal occurrence... should I be doing some type of maintenance on them to keep this from building up so horribly. I did scrub all of the pipes and ran the dishwasher after and had no odor, but, time will tell as to if the odor returns. Any help or comments are welcome as this is a very frustrating situation I am in.
In the beginning of this post I added that the venting system was checked out. The reason for this.. one of the vent pipes on the top of the house had actually dropped down about a foot. No straps were ever put on the vent pipes when the house was built, and so the builder did come out and strap them up and reposition the pipe to it's original spot. He did check out the rest of the vents and said that everything was fine.
I am not sure if that information even pertains to what is going on but at this point all of the facts are important I feel in determining the situation.
Thank you in advance for any help anyone can give me.
Tina

I don't have an answer for your question. But, I care that your question gets answered. By my posting a reply now, your question will get moved more towards the top of the list of questions needing answers. Hopefully, someone will come along soon with the expertise to answer your question.

We have some people on this site who are excellent at providing helpful answers to plumbing questions.

After having a blockage in a home I moved into some years ago your story jogged a memory for me. I found that the previous occupants were a Pakistani family who (bless them) cooked with a lot of heavy oils and fats.

These oils, when disposed of in the drains, caused a gradual build up and eventually a blockage. Some of the plastic pipes actually 'sagged' under the weight of the gunk.

The problem was solved by using a 'ROD' type cleaner, with a strong detergent. Looking at the bill I felt like I was financing NASA for a year rather than paying a plumber but it all ended well... Bill the plumber said "let there be drainage" and there was drainage. ;)

wickedimp, thanks for the information. The odd thing though is that the house is brand new as in six years ago. Do you think that this is normal for this to build up in six years? We don't eat much in the line of greasy foods and I never pour grease down the drain. Even bacon grease gets dumped in a can. I did have a food disposer hooked up to the sink and since this problem started I did tear that out and just put normal piping in. Or... could the fact that the venting in the roof dropped and it was like that for quite some time... could that have somehow caused all this build up of black gunky stuff in the drain pipes?
It sounds like the ROD thing you had the plumbers do worked for you. I just worry that I will foot the bill for NASA only to have this stuff come back.
Thanks for your thoughts.
Tina

A good and inexpensive drain cleaner is bleach. Pour 1/2 gallon down those smelly drains and let it set overnight. Next morning,(and this is important) flush the line out with a few large pans of boiling water. The bleach will loosen and eat up the hair and build up in the pipes and the boiling water will soften and melt the grease and flush the mess away. Good luck, Tom

Excellent answer above based upon experience! I had no idea that using bleach was a good drain cleaner.

Speedball1. Thanks for the tip. I will head to the store this AM for gallons of it. I will pour it down every drain in this house tonight and then flush with boiling water in the AM.
Thanks again.

The first thing I would do is get a plumber out there to do what's called a hydroscrub or hydroflush (most franchised outfits will be set up to do it).

The gunk from the shower drain is from hair that gets trapped in the drains, and all the soap scum that builds up afterwards. It's turning black because the hair is slowly breaking down. Unless you're showering with a garden hose, there's generally not enough velocity to move ALL the debris down the drain.

Inside your kitchen drains, even though you pour all your grease into jars (which I commend you for), there is still residue that sticks to your cooking utensils, pots, pans, dishes, etc. It all gets steamed away by the dishwasher which turns it into a liquid-state, but once that grease flows down the drains, it starts to cool down, clinging to the pipes, occasionally catching anything that comes down afterwards. Again, the black color is from the breaking-down process.

The sour smell on your dishes could be from a clog in the drain hose. There's no easy way to flush it out, but you can always grab a 5-gallon bucket, put the dishwasher on a rinse cycle, disconnect the drain hose, and see what comes out.

As for the washing machine, there may be a partial blockage somewhere in the line, and using the DRANO (bad idea by the way--melts plastic pipe), it's only unclogged part of the problem, then when the machine tried going through it's drain/rinse cycle, that junk had nowhere to go except back into the machine.

I would seriously consider the hydroclean option. Sounds like a lot of money when the plumber shows up to give you an estimate, but it's well worth it. I've cleaned out drains that were 7/8 full of sludge, and had them running like they were new. At the same time, if the drains are easily accessible for a visual inspection, have a plumber check on the elbows... 90* fittings are your enemy... they'll stop waterflow like no ones business, and even with a drain cleaning, the problem will continue to crop up.

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