Urine Smell

[tanikir]

My wife babysits little boys and they tend to spray everywhere. No matter what I do I can't clean the smell away. I'm guessing the pee has gone through the cracks in the peel and stick tiles and is in the subfloor. I'm planning on ripping out the top layer of particle board, replacing with plywood, and tiling. I'm wondering what would help keep the smell from coming back. If the particle board is bad, I think I will paint the bottom layer of plywood with kilz and I was thinking of doing that with the walls too since I don't really know where the smell is coming from.

One poster mentioned a skirted tiolet helped get rid of her smells thinking the urine was flowing down the tiolet bolts. Do you think there is any merit to this idea? Will a skirted tiolet help with the smell? Any other ideas?

[jadnashua]

Even if you seal grout for the tile, it can stain and absorb some smells and stains. If you go with tile, you may want to use an epoxy grout...it'll cost more, but is pretty impervious. A skirted toilet will be easier to keep clean. A very important thing that may not have been done on your toilet is to caulk around the base of the toilet to prevent anything from seeping underneath it. You can clean as much as you want, but if it's underneath, after awhile, it will smell. You might ask them to sit while urinating...less chance of it going everywhere, but no guarantees!

If you want help with tiling, and ensuring it will be done right and last, check out www.johnbridge.com.

[Garydaplummer]

Have a customer with three small boys, but big enough to stand up and pee "like a man". He experienced a urine smell at a couple of the toilets the boys used most of the time. I pulled one of them and the floor under the toilet was encrusted with dried urine. He cleaned it up, I reinstalled the toilets, and I caulked around the base as mentioned earlier. It took care of the problem.