Two months ago I received a desperate text from a young woman who’s the cantor at my church. All of a sudden she was smelling noxious sewer gas in her condominium. She had moved in just two months before and for weeks there had not been a problem.
If you’re a new reader, you may not know that in addition to being a builder, I’ve been a master plumber since 1981. I was attracted to plumbing work because drain, waste, and vent pipes along with water lines present intriguing three-dimensional riddles that must be solved as you build a home. I love it when someone poses a riddle, even if the riddle is presented by inanimate objects like pipes.
Not only did this woman with the voice of an angel smell sewer gas, but down in the basement she had also noticed a water stain in the ceiling above her fitness equipment. I made a trip over to her home and within minutes I had figured out the issue.
“Did anything different happen here just before you started to smell the odor?” This is the first question I ask when I begin my sewer gas investigations.
“Well, I had new flooring installed upstairs,” she replied.
“Let’s go up and see what’s going on,” I said. Once we climbed the stairs, I headed to that part of her condo that was above her fitness room. Lo and behold, I ended up in a half-bathroom.
When I asked her if the flooring installers had removed the toilet, she answered, “Oh yes, the installer disconnected the toilet and reinstalled it again an hour later once the new flooring was down. He said I might need a plumber to come in, but didn’t say why.”
There’s no might about it. The flooring contractor broke the seal between the toilet and the drain pipes that prevents water and sewer gas from escaping into this woman’s condo. He failed to install a new wax gasket to account for the extra thickness of the laminate flooring he put down. Each time the toilet was flushed, water sloshed around and leaked out through the broken seal. Sewer gas was constantly seeping out from under the toilet.
