Septic problems at the house

Anyone here have experience with septic systems? Our house (5 years old) has a septic tank, as do all of them in our neighborhood... we live in a small town and no sewer lines were run through here when the houses were built. Anyway, we've never had any problems until recently... our downstairs bathroom (we have 2 up and 1 down) and the adjacent hallway sometimes smell downright foul. Like the toilet didn't get flushed after someone went #2. Or the dog crapped nearby. But neither one happened. The odor comes and goes, and I can't quite tie it to anything in particular... weather, frequency of use, there doesn't seem to be a detectable pattern.

What could this be? I've talked with other folks about septic tanks and there seem to be a bunch of opinions. (1) Don't do anything, the system will take care of itself. (2) Get the septic tank pumped regularly, like every 1-2-3 years. (3) Dump a can of beer down the toilet once a month, the yeast will help the system. (4) Use a product like Rid-X regularly.

Does the odor indicate a problem with my septic system? Should I do one of the above?

Is there a sink, shower, bath, etc. that does not get  used regularly.  Possibly the drain for a washing machine?  If any of the traps become dried out, the odor can come in. 

Just a thought,

Does the down stairs bathroom drain directly into the septic tank or does it go to a sump and then pumped to an overhead sewer line to the septic?  If you have the sump check that out.  It may need to be cleaned.  Also check all the traps in sewers to be sure they are holding water.  If not gases will escape out the sewer causing odor.  Be sure they always have water in them.  We are mandated by ordinance to pump out tank every three years.  We have never had a tank problem and have never put in an additive.

Hopefully it's just a dry trap, as mentioned previously. If you have a basement, check the floor drain too. Another possibility, one which I hate to even bring up, happened to a friend of mine. He and his wife had a new house built, and after a few years noticed bad odors too. Turns out that the outside plumber that ran the lateral to the septic, never hooked it up to the inside plumbing, resulting in sewage building up around the outside of the foundation walls. You can imagine what it took to fix that problem. After you've checked everything else, you may want to use your nose to smell the ground near the lateral, or even bore a small hole there several feet down, and see what the fill dirt looks/smells like. I sincerely hope that's not your problem.

Oops! Almost forgot - check the wax (or rubber) seal ring beneath the toilet. That'll do it too. You'll need to remove the toilet, but that's not a big job. Oh, and have a replacement ready. They can't be re-used.

Many years ago when we had a septic system, we solved a similar problem by having the tank pumped out every year or two.

If your septic tank has not been pumped out for five years then tahat is the first thing I would have done.

Now I know I entered a reply to this.. 1st one to do so in fact.

I won't bother repeating it as everybody agrees with me, Any kind of a drain in the room, Shower, Floor, etc, which is not used often, can dry out,  Happened at work all the time (Well every few months.  Troopers would complain about the stench, I'd go in and dump a bucket of water in the drains, (Small bucket) and a half hour later they would all be amazed at how I'd fixed it.

We lived on a lake with 134 septic systems. To protect the lake the Homeowners Assn got very involved with septic system maintenance. We all leaned that annual pump outs prevent more damage to the systems than almost anything else. Over the years solids will fill the tank and they will overflow into the dran field eventually plugging it up. Non digestible solids also take up space in the tank that is normally used for bacterial action to do its thing.

We found if two or three of us got together we could get a "group" discount to have a pump out truck make one trip to our neighborhood.

Odors usually come from a lack of water in a p-trap, but that is unlikely in a toilet since each flush refills the trap. Does the toilet seem to flush properly? Or is it slow or does it go "glug-glug-glug"?

Are you sure the odor is coming from the toilet itself? Could it be coming in from the outside?  Have you walked around the area where the tank and drain field is to see if there is any wetness above ground?

What usually goes wrong in a septic system is that the drain field (aka leach field) gets clogged, perhaps with tree roots, and the tank cannot rid itself of the water left over from the digestion process. Pumping the tank solves the problem in the short term but the problem returns, sometimes quickly and sometimes after a year or two. The long term fix is to dig up the drain field and replace it - expensive.

Scotty  Excuse my typing  Just got home from+ 7hrs in hospital,getting fingers LH sewed up, won't go into detail, but (dumb Sh!t, DS,DS,) Time in the ER, delayed because a young boy got run over and then had yo be airlifted.  I had septics for over 50 years, nothing wrong with them, except they do take maintenance.  Get it pumped out and go the Ridex way, or the Robic way. Id you still have problems then it's more than likely roots, should you have trees in your yard.  This is a major problem with sewer roots.  If you have to, have them cut out use Robic root killer after cutting them out. It keeps them from coming back.  Hardware and Farm supply stores also have blue vitro same as  Root kill, but much cheaper and does the same thing.  Good luck  Call me if I can be of further assistance  Same phone no. you had before.

Here in the Hill Country, the bedrock is only about 6" down so leach beds are out of the question.  They use aerobic septic systems with sprinklers to distribute the treated water.  The tanks look like a miniature waste treatment plant, which is exactly what it is.  The output isn't potable but fine for watering the trees and gardens.

We had a septic tank for about three years in southern CA and had it pumped.  The septic guy told us to go to a bakery and buy a pound of baker's yeast every month which we did.  We crumbled the yeast into a toilet, flushed it down, and let it do its thing naturally.  It worked very well.  The septic tank and field was in the front yard next to a beautiful old sycamore tree.  When the tank got pumped all the leaves fell off the sycamore tree but came back once it was again fed by the septic tank. 

Can't comment on the odor because it was never a problem, but I certainly would have it pumped every year or two, depending on the size of your family and how much you're putting into it.  We only needed to do it once or twice because there were just two of us.  I would add to watch what you put down - nothing that won't dissolve or break down easily.

ArdraF

Each toilet in the house has it's own vent through the roof.  This is just a guess but maybe that is plugged.  People have found bees nests, rodents and leaves trapped in them. 

In our previous home that vent was just a few feet up the roof from the deck.  Every once in a while, when you were on the deck,  you would get a smell that would knock your hair off.  Bbq's were an adventure.......... ;D

I also agree with getting your septic tanks pumped out and inspected.  That are not maintenance free.  We had ours pumped every two years and inspected every 6 months. We were on a maintenance program that cost us $19 a month.  Everything was included, including the pumping,  except for major repairs.

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone - here are a few answers to questions you asked me.

- There is a neo-angle shower (the shape that many large 5W's have) in that bathroom that has NEVER been used - it's just the base, drain, and fixtures.  The shower plumbing all works fine but the builder never installed doors on it, and neither have we since we don't need it.  If it's never been used I'm guessing there's no water in the pipes/trap?  Do tubs & showers even have traps like
sinks do?  I can dump some water down there and see what happens.

- AFAIK, the water runs straight out to the septic system.  There is no other pump that takes it up high to drain.  We do not have a basement drain, just a sump hole & pump.  It's been dry for several months here in IL, but there is no odor coming from there.

- The toilet is secure and its seal doesn't seem to be loose.  The odor is just coming from the general area of that bathroom, I can't say it is definitely coming from the toilet.  All the drains work just fine in that bathroom, including the toilet flushing.

- We have one "stink pipe" vent tube coming out our rooftop, I had to seal around it earlier this year to stop a roof leak.  There's no cover or anything on it, and from some other reading I've done I learned that wind can whip down these pipes and force odors back in.  It's been very windy the last several days out here.  Although today it is REALLY windy and there are no odors whatsoever.  It is really an intermittent problem, but one that pops up a lot lately.

- There are no trees in our yard anywhere close to the septic field, so I don't think roots are the problem.  No squishy ground or outdoor odors either.

So that's where we stand now.  I can talk to some neighbors about going in on a "group" tank-pumping.  Since everyone is on septic I'm sure we can work that out. 

We had two septic tanks in our previous house, one for gray and one for black water.  Must have been a good system.  I went 15 years or so without pumping out the tanks.  Didn't know you were supposed to.  Apparently, it did no harm on mine -- everything looked good when they were pumped out...

Since you do not use that shower you can eliminate that possibility by pouring a quart or so of water down the drain then follow with a 1/4 cup of vegtable oil.  The oil will keep the water in the trap from drying out.

Absolutely it needs water in that trap.  If it's dried up it allow all gases from the septic to enter the house via that sewer pipe.

All drains have traps. They may be like the traps on a sink or they may be one of a few other designs but ALL drains have traps

So the shower is now suspect #1 and in fact I suspect there is no longer a #2

John In Detroit said:

So the shower is now suspect #1 and in fact I suspect there is no longer a #2

Click to expand...

That would be nice.    I'll let you know the verdict.