Anyone know what is happening here? A Plumber?

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mark_wpduet

mark_wpduet

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 29, 2008
Messages
2,649
Location
Lexington KY
Hey -

I've been dealing with this for about 6 months now...

I will try to articulate what is happening because it's so WERID!

I have a single story 2 bath home. From the kitchen drain, I sometimes feel like I can smell sewer gas. I have put rubber gloves on, and scrubbed the inside of the garbage disposal with all kinds of things... the rubber, the sides, everything you could imagine...put hot water down the drain to wash everything away. Drain runs super fast....but then I will smell this horrible smell coming from the drain... I'm thinking that has GOT to be sewer gas. I don't smell it in any other drains BUT THE KITCHEN!

Here's where I'm puzzled. I can pour Clorox in both drains undiluted and just let it sit there for 30 mins or so then flush water through the drains and the smell goes completely away for at least a week... then it comes back...I do the bleach thing again and it's gone for another week

What the hell is happening here? I'm clueless.

Thanks
 
Had this sort of problem at parents house, kitchen sink was slow to drain and had that sewer gas problem. The final result after checking everything was a dead squirrel in the vent pipe. Clean it all out and put screens over both air pipes and problem was resolved.

Jon
 
Smell from kitchen sink drain

Yes, I agree with reply number four, most common reason for this type of smell is gunk in the drain hose of the dishwasher. That’s connected to the disposer.

Make sure the drain hose has a proper high loop in it to keep dirty water from going from the disposer into the hose as much, also periodically try using a quarter cup of bleach in your dishwasher to kill anything in the drain hose etc.

It’s a shame there is so much nonsense on this site by several people, the repair people that often have the answers don’t bother because of all the nonsense. Thanks for your answer John in reply number four.

John L
 
Thank you. That actually makes the most sense....Bleach would not stop sewer gas...today I ran the dishwasher and the entire kitchen smelled like that.. I had to put the stoppers in the drain while the dishwasher was running...I'm going to run some bleach through the dishwasher. Not sure what a high loop is I'll have to look it up....the dishwasher inside smells clean and normal. It's just the 2 drains

I wonder if when I pour bleach down the drains in the sink for a bit before flushing with water if that somehow catches the edge of some of the funk in the dishwasher hose before it comes back a bit later...

I used to use about a shot of LCB in the dishwasher but I stopped doing that about a year ago...Definitely going to start doing that again at least once a month
 
I think it WAS the dishwasher drain that goes into the garbage disposal. I ran bleach through the empty dishwasher on the quick wash cycle twice...then, I put on some rubber gloves and scrubbed the walls of the disposer AGAIN and still got some brown sludge off...poured hot water down to rinse then put a garbage disposal cleaner tab through it...I can barely smell anything at all now but if I stick my nose close I feel like it's ever so slightly still there...but NOTHING like it was...

The funny thing is...I'm always running hot water, soap and keep the sinks clean and occasionally just squirting dawn in the disposer while it's running with hot water...and I never put anything down the disposer at all anyway... the inside of the disposer looks like a rusted MESS but it still works. It came with the house so that would make it 19 years old and then some.

I used to put about a shotglass worth of bleach before I started the dishwasher for a long time but about a year ago I stopped doing that...I think it just slowly built up funk in the drain because I stopped. I'm going to start using bleach again..just a lil bit when I run the dishwasher...
 
Sewage smell in a kitchen

Yay Mark I’m glad you got it figured out, I don’t even know if I should ask why you don’t use the disposer, I run loads of food down both disposers every day, and I’ve never had to clean either one.

Garbage disposals are self cleaning if you grind up lots of waste in them, yesterday I made an apple pie all the peelings, and Apple cores went down. I cooked kale for dinner. All the trimmings went down. We ate two grapefruit yesterday. All of the husk from that went down. It’s amazing how much stuff goes down the drain about 30 seconds and a half gallon of water in it’s gone.

Mark, if the turntable and blades at the bottom are very rusty you should go ahead and replace the disposer with a good one and then start using it. Either that you should have it taken out if Plumbing codes will allow you to do that but you should use the thing if you have one.

John
 
I found where a smell I was trying to figure out was coming from when going to replace a sink basket strainer in the non disposer side. Both vertical and horizontal plastic pipes had nasty smelling gung in them, but especially the horizontal one. I cleaned both of them out and that solved my problem
 
You need a new disposer

Hi Mark, if you ever had a clogged drain with that old disposer, the disposer should’ve been replaced immediately, this is the problem with old inexpensive disposers so much of the turntable rust away that it will clog the drain immediately if you actually put much down it.

Get a good quality disposer with all stainless steel grinding components, and you’ll never have a clogged drain for the life of the thing.

John
 
A high loop is...

when they clamp the dishwasher drain hose to the underside of the countertop to try to make the "hump" as high as possible, hopefully to prevent waste water from coming back into the dishwasher.

I notice our disposal to smell and once in a while I will take a piece of Scotch Brite and a lot of Dawn or Ivory and scrub the underside of the rubber baffle and the inside of the disposal. It will be disgusting and enough to make me gag but it gets rid of the odor. You might also try taking all the plumbing parts out from under the sink and soak them in bleach solution, it will also be disgusting and you have to be kind of handy to do that. Look and see if there it not a string of something in the trap, sometimes, it can siphon out the water and expose the sewer fumes.

Good luck with getting rid of odor!
 
OMG I Know. The underside of that baffle can get gross quickly... even if you don't put anything down in there...I'm one of these people that cleans EVERYTHING and never miss much...so this smell was shocking to me. I really don't mind not having a garbage disposal. My thought was that if/when this one starts leaking..that's when I'll get a new one.. Either that or the smell keeps coming back or something...and I definitely won't be getting a builder grade BOL one like this thing I have now...To be honest, I don't think it's EVER been a great one, even brand new. When shopping for them... what should I look for?...Are they one size fits all? I can tell you there's no way in hell I'm installing that Sht myself... Me and plumbing don't mix.

It really makes my mind feel blown that the inside of a garbage disposal can even rust... I mean, it's always wet.... WTH were they thinking.. I don't care how cheap it is...they shouldn't use a material that's going to rust over time.
 
Disposals aren't that hard to install...

It's mostly because if you are not strong the unit is heavy and you are in an awkward position under the sink, especially the higher priced ones are heavier. Otherwise no more complicated than the pipes under the sink.

I saw kits at Home Depot to plumb a sink that use tubes like used on canister vacuum cleaner. I was kind of appalled, those things will accumulate so much smelly crap they must be against the plumbing code.
 
Now that I think about it... I need a new kitchen faucet too...I'm not sure what's up with the one I have... but it screams sometimes when I use it...like a high pitched screech....mostly using hot/warm...but sometimes cold too... It's done this for years and I just live with it... sometimes I can stop it and move the faucet a little and it will stop...probably mineral buildup somewhere or something...It's definitely not the aerator...

My point being... it may be a good idea to just do both at the same time.

Someone please tell me what garbage disposals to avoid and which ones are good...
 
While you are at it...

You might also want to replace the sink and the countertop and the faucet and be done with it for a few years. It will be easier to replace the faucet if you take the sink out. I have had good luck with American Standard faucets, but others can chime in here with what worked for them. Then you may find the backsplash and the cabinets look like crap so next thing you know you may be getting a whole new kitchen.
 
I’ve replaced several kitchen faucets and I’ve also replaced a kitchen sink. While its not really hard to do either of these tasks, its one helluva a lot easier to just replace the faucet. Replacing a sink, especially if you’ve never done it before is a lot more time consuming.

Replacing the countertop would require a pro for most homeowners and is a pretty expensive job, I’d only replace the counter tops if they were really in bad condition or I really hated the countertops that I had already.

I’ve installed all different brands of faucets, Delta, Price-Pfister, Peerless and Moen, and they are all pretty easy to install. Just clear out everything from under your sink to give plenty of space to work in, have a good flashlight, preferably one that you can locate standing up to shine the light on the underside of the sink and faucet and a large and small crescent wrenches and your good to go. Be sure to read and reread the directions first. Also it doesn’t hurt to look at a few You Tube videos first on how to replace a faucet.

Anyone with basic DYI skills can replace a faucet in an hour or less. I replaced our kitchen sink faucet in 2018 and it took me about 30 mins start to finish and its never leaked a drop of water.

Eddie
 
Let me start by emphasizing that I'm probably the least do-it-yourselfy person on this site.
And, I have no personal knowledge of plumbing fixtures. But, when we needed to replace our kitchen faucet, some years ago, we were advised to stick with Delta or Moen. We were told that they're the only brands that can be repaired when needed. Is it true? I don't know. But, the faucet hasn't given us any problems.
 
Our kitchen faucet is a Peerless and repair parts are readily available should the need arise, which it hasn’t and our shower/tub faucet is a Price-Pfister that was installed when the home was built in 1980 and I’ve replaced the cartridge twice in the 29 years we’ve lived here to repair a dripping faucet and both times had no problem finding the necessary part.

BTW, I really love the Peerless High Arch, two handle faucet in our kitchen sink. Its the best we’ve ever had! And if was quite reasonable in price. The high arch faucet makes it really easy to wash and rinse large pots and pans and it really looks nice too.

Eddie
 
Yea - the sink looks really good... even though I think it's just a standard sink they put in all homes with the BOL faucet.. I sometimes wish I had one giant sink instead of two... then other times I'm glad I have two..

mark_wpduet-2023102013133807613_1.jpg
 
I bought a dollar tree toilet brush that just fits through the disposer opening.  I sprinkle Comet (that has chlorine in it) on the brush and then go to town in there.  When I pull the brush out it inverts the rubber baffles and scrubs them too. 

 

But yes the plastic pipes under the sink do get gunk built up in them from time to time..my mom's does also.  We never had that problem back when pipes were brass...copper is a natural antimicrobial and brass has copper in it.  I need to replace the baffle on my disposer and will probably switch to a brass pipe when I do that. Already have the pipe, just need to install it.
 
Re:#21

Mark,
From the photo of your kitchen sink it appears that you have a counter top water filter with the hose connected to a diverter valve at the faucet for dispensing filtered water. We also used to have a water filter like this. Our water has a lot of chlorine in it so we use a filter to get the awful taste of chlorine out of the water.

We got rid of the counter top filter and switched to a faucet mount water filter made by iSprings a company located in Alpharetta, Georgia. We have the DF2 filter and it is excellent! The filters last for 6 months and are easy to change. These filters and replacement filters are always available on eBay and at Lowes and I believe Amazon too. I highly recommend this water filter.

We’ve been using water filters since we moved into our home over 29 years ago. We’ve used Btita, both faucet mount and dispenser model filters and PUR faucet mount filters and counter top filter. The iSprings DF2 is hands down the best! We also had a GE undersink mount filter with a dedicated faucet on the sink top for the filtered water to dispense from, but it made the pipes knock.

The iSpring DF2 looks nice on the high arch faucet and its very convenient. We’ve had this filter for over 5 years without any problems. Its simple and sturdily made.

Eddie

ea56-2023102218084106810_1.jpg
 
This is a reverse osmosis countertop filter... and lemme tell ya...it's freaking amazing... I have 2 glass gallon jugs I bought off amazon...fill them (because it's slow) I have to set a timer as it fills. TDS is 2 PPM... water tastes like nothing..completely pure.. I also have a water distiller I bought a LONG time ago...I put some Reverse osmosis water in the distiller and distilled some water and there was NO sediment or minerals in the bottom of the distiller. If I'd used tap water it would have been like this brown sludge in the bottom.

This is the one I got.. At first I thought it would look unsightly on the counter or be in the way but it's really not that bad at all

Here's the one I got... 3 of the filters get changed every six months and one of them get changed once per year...
I think a filter set is like $50

 
Re:#24

Thats quite a set up Mark. I’m glad that it works well for you and that you are happy with the filtered water from this counter top filter system.

The filtered water that I get from my iSprings faucet mount filter is free of any unpleasant taste or smell too. And it comes out of the filtered side of the faucet filter just as fast as from the unfiltered side. I’ve never attempted to distill the filtered water from my faucet mount filter, but I suspect that there would be little if any sediment in it. Our city water is very clean, its just the chlorine that we object to and the faucet mount filter takes care of removing the chlorine to our satisfaction. We use filtered water in the tea kettle and there is minimal build up of any calcium deposits inside of it.

The only reason that I suggested this filter to you is because when we had our PUR counter top filter I hated having the tubing running on the back of the sink and on the faucet. Since this isn’t an issue for you then you’re good to go.

Eddie
 

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