squash11
Jul 29, 2009, 12:51 PM
We are buying this 26 yrs old house with a septic system. The walkout level basement is finished with a full bath.
The main drain is 6 feet higher than the basement floor. So the basement designer used a Qwik Jon system (a zoeller pump) to pump the basement sewage up to the main drain. The pump is behind the drywall.
The bathroom hasn't been used for quite a while.In the day of home inspection, the inspector used the basement toilet. The sewer smell emergies after he flushed the toilet. The exhaust fan doesn't help a bit.
As long as we close the bathroom, the other parts of basement have no sewer smell. The utility room is 5 feet from the zoeller pump and we can't smell anything there.
After reading most of related posts in this forum, I guess the smell comes from either shower drain or toilet.
If it's from shower drain, what should we do?
My step: 1. confirm the existence of the P trap.
2. check the P trap is dried out or not.
3. pour 1/2 gallon bleach for over 24 hours, then use boiling water to flush the shower drain.
If the smell comes from the toilet. We first need to check the wax seal is bad or not. The
Instruction of the Qwik Jon system says we need the special wax seal coming with the
System. We couldn't find it in the market. Can we just use any other thin wax seal instead?
We will also pour some bleach and boiling water into toilet to see it helps or not.
Any comments?
The main drain is 6 feet higher than the basement floor. So the basement designer used a Qwik Jon system (a zoeller pump) to pump the basement sewage up to the main drain. The pump is behind the drywall.
The bathroom hasn't been used for quite a while.In the day of home inspection, the inspector used the basement toilet. The sewer smell emergies after he flushed the toilet. The exhaust fan doesn't help a bit.
As long as we close the bathroom, the other parts of basement have no sewer smell. The utility room is 5 feet from the zoeller pump and we can't smell anything there.
After reading most of related posts in this forum, I guess the smell comes from either shower drain or toilet.
If it's from shower drain, what should we do?
My step: 1. confirm the existence of the P trap.
2. check the P trap is dried out or not.
3. pour 1/2 gallon bleach for over 24 hours, then use boiling water to flush the shower drain.
If the smell comes from the toilet. We first need to check the wax seal is bad or not. The
Instruction of the Qwik Jon system says we need the special wax seal coming with the
System. We couldn't find it in the market. Can we just use any other thin wax seal instead?
We will also pour some bleach and boiling water into toilet to see it helps or not.
Any comments?