Bad smell

Rusty Powers

I'd look for a floor drain, laundry or sink p-trap that has dried out...
Could be a dead mouse also.
My black lab is amazing for mystery stench detection.

Bob Larson_3

Bad smell

I walked into a lady’s house today, and agreed with her assessment that it smelled “yucky” near the boiler. It’s a closed loop electric boiler with 3 zones on pumps. It heats fine, but she says the pressure gets too high from time to time, plus there’s the smell issue. I drained some water into my hand, and it didn’t seem to smell bad. Then I vented air out of the expansion tank, to see if it was waterlogged, and air did come out, but it smelled VERY bad - like a combination of sewer and sulphur.



There is no smell from the water at any of the plumbing fixtures, it’s city water. So all I can think to do is to bid replacing the fill valve and expansion tank. Am I missing something?

Brad White_203

Your black lab is also

inaudibly flatulent too, I have heard.

That come in handy sometimes!

mark schofield

Like Rusty said, it might be a floor drain. The shool system I use to wor for woud occasionally have a smell in the kitchens or mechanical rooms because the custodians forgot to add water to the drains (they had traps). If you find a drain and it goes directly outside, perhaps there's something dead in it.

Bob Larson_3

Not sewer gas

I've had a lot of experience with that. (The worst one was a dead 'possum in the crawl under the bathroom, swarming with maggots) The boiler is in the garage, no plumbing nearby, and the smell is definitely strongest at the boiler.

don_185

check

Check for pitted contactor sticking couple, with a bad limit.