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tessa64 · Nov 2, 2008, 08:35 AM

Hello everyone I am new to this site. I am looking for help. My husband and I can seem to find someone who can tell us what kind of odor we have in our house. The smell is horroble, it stay in our main entrance hallway towards the basement stairs. It smells like gas, that's what most people says when they come in the hallway. It comes and goes few times. Its annoying, we have this smell since we have our furnished put in a year ago 2006 in fall. We have the gas and electric company look at our lines to see if we have a leakeage going on, but they can't find anything they started getting annoyed of me calling me 3x in that firsdt weel we noticed the odor. But everything is fine they said no gas leak. We call people who are experience in mold etc. they could find anything, but they can smell it. Some people think its smells like sewer gas. I am concern because I have a nine yr old son and every time we come in that hallway he can also enhaled the smell. He hates it. Help us... We need your help.

speedball1 · Nov 3, 2008, 11:27 AM

Look down the drain at all the traps. If they're full of water then you should be OK, but if there's almost no water in any of the traps then you could have a vent that's blocked. Also you've tried everything else you might want to consider replacing the wax rings in your toilets. Sewer gas can escape a defective ring yet not leak water when flushed. The wax ring can emit sewer gases from the base of your toilets and you will swear it's coming from the shower/tub drain, lavatory drain etc. Also you might check up in the attic to make sure there are no open vents up there.
Sewer gases have a way of dulling the olfactory nerve and make detection nasally impossible.
You must realize that smells and weird noises are the hardest to track down when you're on site and just about impossible when you're not.
All we can do is point out likely spots. Good luck, Tom

tessa64 · Nov 3, 2008, 06:03 PM

Hi Tom thank you for the respond. Unfurtunately the last time that we called is a plumber and he checked all the drainage. Another thing he did is what you just said to check the ring under the toilet to make sure no sewer leak theire. We had tried everything. Everything is all checked. The funny thing is today we do not smell anything at all. We are wondering why it comes and goes :confused: I guess if anything we just going to live with it. It sounds like there is no solution in this problem we have. We tried deodorizing the hallway and put some air freshner in the hallway. Like I said it comes and goes and it smells like gas :o

speedball1 · Nov 3, 2008, 07:49 PM

One more thing that just might explain away everything. This is off the top of my head but it fits your description of events.
If there were a open vent, or a leak in a existing one, sewer gas would accumulate up there and as long as the air up there was warner then the house the gas stayed in the attic. But when it gets colder sewer gas will fall towards the ground. Temperature fluctuation or changes in temperature would explain why some days it smells and others it doesn't
I don't usually work after 7 PM but I must have had your problem in the back of my mind. I was watching TV and I snapped to it. If it sound's a little crazy to you blame it on two stiff drinks and the time of day.
Hope this helps and thanks for rating my reply. Tom,