Septic Fumes Backing Up Into House

[rileyjo]

Bleh, It's stinks in here.

I've had the upper floors of my house closed off to conserve heat. For a week, I've blamed the bad smell on poor kittycat but I've realized that my vent stack is probably frozen. It runs thru the attic and exits on the north roof, plus it's capped. The winds and snow/rain storms have been fierce this past week.

My woodstove is in the basement and barely heats the mid floors. I throw a party and celebrate if I can get it to 60*. The upper bedrooms/bathroom are about 40-45* . There's a wee bit of RV antifreeze in the upstairs bathroom pipes.

The upstairs toilet is also leaking at the base and I'm sure that the seal is broken. It is dripping into the kitchen directly below. That I can fix.

Tonight I have a space heater running upstairs and I'm worried about getting blown into next week if the septic gasses go poof because of the space heater.
What's the chance of that?

[MELOC]

i don't know what the chances are, but i can tell you i have seen the aftermath of a house that was hooked improperly to city sewer and blew up. it took out much of the back half of the house after the basement apparently filled with methane and ignited from a spark from something electrical like the furnace switching on. you may want to get that looked at. you can't smell the methane, so you have no idea how dense the gases may be. maybe it's nothing or maybe it's serious.

[Alice In TX/MO]

If you aren't using the upstairs toilet, turn off the water to it, drain the tank and bowl, and that should stop the leak.

[tallpines]

It may be the leak, and lack of water in the toilet that is allowing the stink to reach inside your home.

DD's dog had drank ALL of the water out of her spare bathroom toilet.
Once the water was gone there was no vapor lock, and so, the "Vapors" were escaping into her house.

In her case, all she needed to do was flush the toilet, to replace the missing water, and the sewer gas no longer has access inside her home.


Once you fix that leak, so the toilet can hold water, the water should block the path, and eliminate the smell.

[Shadow]

If the vent pipe is plugged it could cause gas to bubble thru the water in the comode and build up in the house untill it could explode and that would be terrible. Cutting off the water and flushing the toliet would only make things worse. No vapor lock at all.
Get the vent open and untill you can get out. You probably need expert help and quick.

[Shrek]

clogged air flow vent pipes allowing back pressure to bubble through the waterlocks and dried out water locks on unused drains are the most likely causes.

First step is to run water in all unused toilet and sink drains. If it still smells like a fart, snake out and flush the vent lines. Dirt daubers and wasps often build nests in the air flow vent pipes.

The time I had to clean mine, the maintenance man I use since I cant climb on the roof first used a hose connected to my water heater drain spigot to deliver hot water into the vent pipe to kill any wasps before snaking it.

After it was snaked and flushed, he put a hook pipe end and window screen mesh cap over the top of the pipe to preventstraight in water flow and future nestings in it.

[Ken Scharabok]

Can you wrap a pipe heat strip around the pipe in the attic?

[LFmenagerie]

It seems our vent pipe freezes up a couple of times a winter. We have two things that we do. First, as soon as we notice the odor, we light a candle or two. This prevents the build up of methane and helps keep the odor down. Second, as soon as I can get to it, I carry a bucket of hot water up on the roof and pour it down the vent pipe. This has worked every time for us.
Tom

[Cabin Fever]

As others have said, I suspect that your vent pipe is plugged. Since you're in Ontario, the vent pipe is likely plugged with frost from the freezing of moist air that rises up the stack....or it could be plugged with snow (can you see the stack above the snow?) This is relatively common in cold climates.

Your vent stack is capped, in our climate the stack should not be capped....the cap will exascerbate frosting and plugging of the vent during the winter. The plugged vent will cause a back pressure in your waste system that will allow gas to bubble up through your floor drains, P-traps and S-traps...causing the odor that you smell.

My suggestion is to get up on the roof, clear the snow off around the vent stack, and melt any frost accumulation in the stack with a hair dryer. Frost can also be removed with a wooden stick. While you're up there, remove the vent cap.

If you cannot get up on the roof, you may be lucky enough to find a clean-out port at the bottom of the vent pipe. Open the port and either snake a rod up the vent stack or stick a hair dryer in the vent pipe. If the attic is accessible, you could warm the vent pipe with a hair dryer to melt the accumulated frost or apply heat tape as Ken suggested.