Another smelly bathroom.

[joengn]

Sorry for the double post, I should have put this here first instead of the general one ...

I know there are already quite a few posts on odors in the bathroom but I've got another one of those cases.

I have a full bath and half bath (addition) that are adjacent to each other. We remodeled the half bath (month or two ago): took out carpet, refinished hardwoods, put in new sink and ABS piping/trap that runs from the sink to wall. While the old fixtures were off I started noticing a smell (not right away) but I thought it would go away when we installed the new fixtures. Now we are remodeling the full bath. Currently the sink and toilet are removed in that room and I installed a new bathtub and drain. That room doesn't smell at all but I have tried pouring water down the toilet flange and sink trap to keep them wet and the bathtub has been filled and drained periodically (minimum weekly).

Wasn't sure what to do but I have a pregnant wife and I'm concerned about fumes. Yesterday I took off the brand new toilet in the half bath and put a new wax ring (old looked fine though). I also screwed down the flange because it wasn't secured tight to the floor. The toilet doesn't rock from what I can tell and all indications are that the wax ring sealed fine. While the toilet was off I did a lot of smelling around and the smell was worse on the SIDE of the closet flange than it was when I smelled down the pipe itself. And the pipe smells totally different than the toilet drain pipe in the full bath (which doesn't really smell bad).

Questions: Feels like something we've done wrong because the smell wasn't there when we bought the house a few months ago. If the problem was the fact that we have had all the fixtures off in the full bath for awhile (weekend DIY's) wouldn't the full bath be the place that smells? The smell isn't really "sewage", its just weird and I can't describe it but its not really pleasant. If it is the vent, wouldn't places other than just the one toilet smell? The smell doesn't just come from the base of the toilet. If I smell inside the toilet (in the morning after the lids been down for awhile) it smells bad too. Finally, just as a note this toilet has clogged twice since we installed it about a month and a half ago. It was really easy to plunge but it didn't seem like there was enough "stuff" in there to make it clog. At first I thought it was just because it was a 1.6gpf (standard I know but the old one wasn't).

I hope this is enough info, I have a diagram of the rooms (not the plumbing) if that helps but probably isn't useful. I suppose I need to check in the crawl space under the half bath too but I haven't done that yet. Ive been down there recently (working on the tub) and didn't smell anything but I wasn't directly under the toilet in the half bath.

Hoping for some replies, sorry for the long post but I wanted to give lots of details.

Joe

[geniescience]

.... have tried pouring water down the toilet flange and sink trap to keep them wet ....

water poured down the toilet flange, is not the same thing as water poured down other pipes that have P traps. A toilet's P trap is inside the toilet bowl itself, so the flange is on an open pipe with no water seal like the others that have P traps on them. Put a rag in it, tape it off, seal it shut.

- Also put a sock in any other pipe that is open and has no P trap.

- Also put a sock in any vent pipe that is open.

Once these are all sealed off, see if that stops the smells.

David