Smell from Multiples Fixtures

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caracal

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Jan 20, 2011
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Toronto, Ontario
Hello,

We just bought a house 3 weeks ago. After about one week, we had a VERY strong smell start coming from the master bathroom corner shower upstairs(which subsequently went away 90%). There are two bathrooms upstairs, the second bathroom and the rest of upstairs fixtures were not affected.. Only corner shower.

After a week of the shower smelling, the smell started to come out of the kitchen sink downstairs slowly.. The kitchen sink is almost directly under the corner shower. The smell comes out of the kitchen sink more when the water is being run.

Now, a week after the kitchen sink, the basement sink started to smell as well. The basement sink is not under the kitchen sink, it is quite further away and connected to a separate drain pipe.

There are two main drain pipes in the basement.

I've previously tried to open both cleanouts in the basement and smelled inside, but that smell was not there. I also tried a drain snake almost everywhere without finding anything.

The smell is coming from the top downward somehow? I am aware that when water runs, air is sucked from the roof through the vent and comes down..

I can't figure out is where this smell is being generated from however.

I can't describe the smell.. it is not a public sewer smell. The best I can say is that I've smelled the same exact smell in other people's kitchen sink at the very bottom of the sink. However in other sinks this smell is very faint and you can barely notice it.

Plumbers don't seem to want to come out to take a look, they say if it's not plugged they can't do anything.

I've inspected the traps and they have water, so I don't know how the smells comes out of there, does it go through water??

Any ideas what else I can try ?
 
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Is the smell there all the time, is it now only coming from one item?

Now it's in the basement and in the kitchen. I asked a plumber and they said it's scale buildup on the pipes..

Update: Corner shower smell is starting to come back. I also figured out the basement drain is only for the basement sink/washer, nothing else drains there. It has a pipe going up (I think it's a 2" PVC) but I'm quite sure now it's just for venting.

The smell comes through the spout of the utility sink..The fosset has a clear plastic air tube which goes down inside a small diameter black pipe, which then goes in the basement floor down next to the 6" drain pipe. The smell is coming through the tiny air tube. If I drain some water and cover the sink spout, I feel the vacuum on my finger. I'm surprised everything is so air tight that it would cause a vacuum without that little tube, is this normal?
 
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This may be an issue with the anode rods in your water heater, I had this happen to me several different times and the results have been good by changing the rods out or replacing the water heater itself.
 

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