toilet smell & septic tank advice - Pleeease!

pinky · Postby **pinky** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 10:57 am

Can anyone help with any suggestions for the following problem please. We have a large septic tank (10 person capacity, but there's only 2/sometimes 4 of us, non-resident) with 2 air vents - one placed low and the other high (about 2m) on the tank, and so all appears correct according to the diagram in the manufacturers manual.
However, we are getting bad sewage smells in the bathroom, which has been traced back to the toilet. It's a simple bog-standard (excuse the pun!) Roca Victoria model, which you see everywhere in Spain. The builder says he has changed the rubber gasket which is inside the toilet (at the point which connects the ceramic toilet part to the soil pipe apparently), and has then siliconed around the bottom of the toilet (where the ceramic bit meets the floor tile). Is this normal practice to silicone around the bottom of the floor to further try to keep the system gas tight? Presumably the silicone will just shrivel down in time anyway? Any thoughts on the subject much appreciated as this happened a while ago and the same problem has now just moved on to another 2nd toilet. It's really unpleasant to live with and we need a solution PDQ!!

Dealer · Postby **Dealer** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 11:07 am

Check your vents as it sounds like the gas from the tank is 'burping' through the toilet water trap.

pinky · Postby **pinky** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 12:29 pm

Thanks for that, will check the vents as you suggest....
Anyone else got any advice, please, especially about siliconing around the bottom of the toilet - does that help/work? Does anyone else have silicone around the bottom of their toilet too???

pinky · Postby **pinky** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 12:35 pm

having said that, don't think it's coming from the inside of the bowl/ water part. it definitely seems to come from the bottom of the ceramic bit where it meets the floor tiles.
also, we did have a prob with smell coming from the inspection chamber/drain junction (just outside the bathroom itself/at the exterior of the house, where all the waste pipes from the house meet up to go into the one soil pipe towards the septic tank), but that does not smell anymore as they have re-sealed it again and put more concrete over it, so no gas can escape from there.....

Dealer · Postby **Dealer** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 1:42 pm

pinky wrote:Thanks for that, will check the vents as you suggest....
Anyone else got any advice, please, especially about siliconing around the bottom of the toilet - does that help/work? Does anyone else have silicone around the bottom of their toilet too???

Close the toilet lid and keep closed for 12 hours open the lid and drop a ,match in if you hear a sound like a Great Dane barking WOOF you will know that the gas is escaping through the water

Legal bit.
Now please do not be silly and try the above!

Campo Kenny · Postby **Campo Kenny** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 3:30 pm

As for the silicon around the bottom of pedestal, I think this is just to "bed" it down on and has nothing to do with sealing it. In the UK or elsewhere I presume it would be bedded down on "Plumbers mate" or similar.........some people bed it on a weak sand and cement mix.

As for the smells, are you sure it's coming from the the loo itself. From your posting I'm not 100% sure if you live there full time.

The reason I mention this is we used to get a whiff on returning to the house after a few months away in one of the bathrooms. I reckoned it was not coming from the bog but from the shower.........I tank-taped the drain hole up in the shower tray before leaving and we have not had the smells since..............I reckon it must be because the shower has little or no water barrier to protect against this. It's worth a try, deffo worked for us.

If your shower does not drain into septic tank then ignore me

Kenny

spanish hopes · Postby **spanish hopes** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 4:13 pm

If it is left for a period of time kenny the seals will be broken as the water in the traps evaporates.
We always cover or WC with cling film and this delays the evaporation. A simple sink plug would delay it in the other areas such as sink, bidet and shower/bath.
As the water is usually turned off whilst the place is empty then you will have no worries about the sink or bath running over in your absence.

Campo Kenny · Postby **Campo Kenny** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 4:21 pm

Good point, we always fix all the sink plugs in but don't have one for the showers.

Re. the clingfilm that seems a reasonable shout for the bogs....will give that a go, but I can't remember the water levels in the bend dropping that much even after months.

The other reasn I taped the showers up is we got these little tiny fruit-fly like things hanging around there whilst we were away.....anyone else had them?

Kenny

BENIDORM · Postby **BENIDORM** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 4:32 pm

Spanish Hopes writes....

' We always cover our Wc with cling film'..

Could be a problem if you are 'caught short'.......

spanish hopes · Postby **spanish hopes** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 5:24 pm

I am still at the age where I can control my bodily functions so don't get caught short.

dido72 · Postby **dido72** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 5:45 pm

My parents bath, bidet, sink and toilet were all connected to the same soil pipe so when the toilet blocked up they had sewage leaking up through the bath etc. Give the toilet a really good clean then have a sniff

round the others to see if the smell is coming from them instead...nice!

Diana.

pdellis · Postby **pdellis** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 6:46 pm

I concur with Dido, all our pipes (toilet, bath, shower and sink), connect into the same waste pipe leading to the septic tank. I have noted on occassion a smell from the shower trap and put it down to this.

You can get eco-friendly drain cleaners which could possibly help and at the same time won't affect the natural goings-on inside the septic tank itself

spanish hopes · Postby **spanish hopes** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 7:07 pm

It isn't unusual for all drains in a bathroom to run into each other. If the length of run is too great it is possible that a vacuum can be formed and thus the water seal be broken by water being sucked into the vacuum.

pigs-might-fly · Postby **pigs-might-fly** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 8:38 pm

We solved a smell in one bathroom by sealing around the base of the W.C.Apparently it's necessary with the very close coupled units which have a dual economy/normal flush.

Mixter · Postby **Mixter** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 5:08 pm

Are the toilet pans in Spain connected differntly to the UK? As in not connected by a spigot at the back but from underneath the pedastal? In the UK, technicaly, it wouldnt matter if the pot was 'free-standing'...apart from risking toppling over (this deffinately hasnt happened to me one drunken night in a place where the screws were missing!).

pigs-might-fly · Postby **pigs-might-fly** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 6:42 pm

Spanish plumbing, particularly in modern, "thrown-up for the tourist market" developments are certainly not to U.K (or normal Spanish).standards in many cases.
It is not at all unusual not to have U bends, to find water leaks in joints embedded in the walls and also I have heard waste outlets not being connected to anything!
The problem lies, I think, in the frenetic building activity which has led to a dire shortage of skilled craftsmen of all trades. Their places have often been filled by itinerant workers from North Africa and South America. These travellers know they will not be around when problems come to light and do the job accordingly.

Postby **El Cid** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 6:55 pm

We had a similar problem with smells. Eventually we decided that it was coming from the shower drain. This is a normal terrace type water trap but it dried out very fast.

The solution was to install a proper U bend below the shower. Luckily it was an easy job as all the plumbing drops down into the underbuild and is accessible.

The best solution, if it is accessible, is to install a very large U-bend after the point where all the outlets combine before they go into the tank.

Sid

Gazespana · Postby **Gazespana** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 9:33 pm

Iconcur with Sid. Similar problem at a friends house dealt with by installing new u bends, also you can introduce biological agents to break down the solids available from Mercadonas called Foso Septico.

peteroldracer · Postby **peteroldracer** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 4:04 pm

pdellis wrote:You can get eco-friendly drain cleaners

Anyone come up with a brand name to look out for? We would love to be able to use a "Toilet Duck" type of solution to disinfect and clean, but one that doesn't stop the turd-munching action in the bio tank.

silver · Postby **silver** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 4:53 pm

The problem lies, I think, in the frenetic building activity which has led to a dire shortage of skilled craftsmen of all trades.

Yeh..said on the news yesterday that there is more building going on in Spain than in England, France and Germany together...a lot of the big "building companies" have all the work sub contracted out and some sub contract from the sub contractors..with the job being done so cheap by the sub sub sub contractors that most of its a bosh.