[mjb279]

Help - my house smells like old wet roots! - several weeks ago I noticed a smell coming from the floor drains in the basement that kind of smelled like old rotten potatoes. My old 1929 house has basement floor drains without traps that drain to a single trap near the front of the house, and that trap empties into the sewer line headed for the street. I snaked out the drains and found a couple of hand fulls of roots in the line. I poured water down the drains and they seem to run all right and the trap has water in it. Instead of going away, the smell has gotten worse! - Any ideas? Could it be something else?

[speedball1]

Pour a 1/2 gallon of bleach down each floor drain and let set over night, Next morning flush the lines out vwith a few pans of boiling water. That's for the smell.
If you wish to control roots RootX or Robics Foaming Root Killer that contain Dichlobrnic are two products you could try.
A less expensive way would be to call around to garden supply stores and ask for fine grain Copper Sulphate. Put a 1/2 pound in your toilet and flush it down. Repeat in 6 months.
Hope this helps and thank you for rating my answer, Tom