Ok I need help! For the past three years we have been unable to burn our wood stove in the basement due to a sewer smell. The sewer pipe does run above the woodstove and when it gets really hot this smell fills the whole house! We need to burn wood this winter due to our wonderful economy but how do you find the problem? We have searched for leaks and or cracks, found none. What is the best way to find a crack and do you think it is a crack! I am so fed up with this smell! Thanks in advance.:mad:

When the stove is burning, and hot air is rising in the chimney, a vacuum is created that sucks air into the house. That means it could be sucking air through a waste vent. These are pipes that run up through the house and usually through the roof.

I'm not a plumber, but I know that older houses will have iron waste pipes and vent stacks. I would be suspicious of any loose joints in these pipes.

Are you looking for leaks and cracks in all of the larger waste pipes, including a vertical vent pipe? Obviously these could be hidden in the walls.

Jenny,
You ask,

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What is the best way to find a crack?

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The only way to test for leaks in a Drainage/Vent system is to set up a smoke test. This means closing off all the vents with inflatable test balls, opening up the house clean out and tossing in a smoke bomb and then inserting a test ball upstream from the cleanout.
The bomb can be yellow or red amnd ikf you have a leak that allows sewer gas to escape the smoke will tell you where it is.
I like Hobsons explanation. It makes sense until you realize that even if the vent sucked in the sewer gas it should never get out into the house unless the vent had a leak. Call for a smoke test and let me know the results. Tom