Have you ever walked into your bathroom or laundry, only to be hit in the face with a terrible smell that has no apparent source?
It’s a common issue, and the usual culprit – and first place to look – is your floor waste. Even better, if it turns out your floor waste is the problem, it’s usually a pretty quick fix to get rid of nasty smells in your home.
WHAT IS A FLOOR WASTE?
Your floor waste is the drain in your bathroom and laundry floor, usually with a grate set into floor level – although some more modern homes have tiled wastes.
Floor wastes are the last line of defense for flooding in your bathroom and laundry, helping protect the rest of your home from water damage. The drain is usually connected through to your sewer pipe so that any waste water that flows in is carried away.
WHAT CAUSES BAD SMELLS IN YOUR FLOOR WASTE?
Shower and laundry floor wastes should have water inside them, which creates a seal that blocks gases from the sewer coming into your house – called a trap.
Bad smells coming into your bathroom or laundry usually mean that the water trap is not working properly, and the drain is allowing sewer gases to flow into your home.
There are a couple of reasons this could be happening.
1. Your floor waste has dried out
Floor drains are particularly susceptible to drying out – because it’s not often that water is flowing into them. If the weather is hot, dry and windy, this can also fast track evaporation that depletes the water trap.
2. There’s a leak in your plumbing trap pipe
If your trap pipe is cracked, it won’t matter how many times you fill that drain up with water. This is the time to pick up the phone to your local plumber for a drain inspection – or, if your pipes are located under concrete and you don’t want to dig up your floor, talk to your Nuflow team for an alternative solution.
IS YOUR FLOOR WASTE CAUSING NASTY SMELLS?
Aside from a good old fashioned sniff test, the easiest way to check if your floor waste is blocking bad smells is to shine a torch into it. If you can see water, you’re in the clear. If you can see all the way down into the pipe, there’s nothing stopping sewer smells.
Aside from not wanting your home to smell like a sewer, this can also cause health problems. Luckily, if you have smelly bathroom floor drains it’s usually a quick fix to restore your water trap.
HOW TO ELIMINATE ODOURS CAUSED BY YOUR FLOOR WASTE
Cleaning smelly drains that have dried out is usually straightforward. Simply fill up a bucket with water, and pour it down into the waste. If you haven’t used your hand basin or laundry sink in a while, it’s a good time to run some water into these drains, too.
After you’ve poured the water into the drains, check them out again with a torch to see if it’s done the trick. It’s worth giving them another check in the coming days to see if the water trap is still visible and working.
PIPE RELINING FLOOR DRAIN REPAIR
If the problem is under your floor, it can be a hassle to pull the pipes out and replace them. Pipe relining is an alternative that doesn’t require any destruction or damage to your home. Want to see how we do it? Check out this floor waste relining project we completed at a prison in New Zealand.
WE’RE HERE TO HELP
Nuflow’s expert teams are fully equipped with the tools and know-how to fix your floor waste woes. If you’ve tried pouring water into your floor waste but the stink still sticks, chat with us to get it sorted for good. Find your local Nuflow team.
