January 3, 2015
Sewer Gas Smell in Basement
We received an early morning phone call from our clients saying that they were getting a sewer gas smell in their basement around the pump. A week before the discovery of the smell, we had replaced the ejector pump due to its malfunction. After thinking that the smell was coming from the ejector pump, we waited a week for the sewer gas smell to settle down but the clients called us back stating that the sewer gas smell was worse.
After investigating the sump pump area, we discovered that the sewer gas smell was coming from the sump pump pit. The reason behind that their main sewer sheared at their foundation just outside their house. So everytime they used any type of water source in their house, some of the water was getting into the drain tile which is connected to the sump pump. Due to our vast experience in the plumbing industry, we knew right away that the sewer line was collapsed.
So we put a camera through the sewer line and found out the main sewer line was sheared/collapsed within 1 foot of their foundation. We hand dug up the sewer line that was about 6 ft. down so that we did not damage any of their surrounding landscaping. Once we got to the main sewer, we showed the clients where the sewer line had sheared, which is shown in the photo below.
We were able to replace the broken pipe with new piping. After we filled the hole back in we had pulled the sump pumps and the battery backup system from the sump pit and cleaned it thoroughly and also bleached it, also cleaning the pumps before we re-installed them, so that there was no sewer gas smell remaining in their house.
This project took us 1 day to complete.
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