Awful sewer gas smell in the baby's room

There is a bathroom next to the baby's room. The toilet is secured and not moving. I have to check and see if I can smell the sewer gases outside of the babie's room the next time it comes up, to see if it is a downdraft as sewerodor has suggested, and maybe I will try his product. I just wonder if that product kills the odor or sucks it in itself? Because if it is just like a refresher with a pretty scent it has no effect on protecting my babies from the sewer gases if they still come up, and are just concealed with a pretty scent. I donno much about vent stacks, but I do know that all the smoke from the smoke bombs when they were put into my groundlevel cleanout came out of them. Doesnt this mean they are operating the way they're supposed to be?

Yes and no you would get the smoke out the vent stack even if there were a break in the vent somewhere else. The smoke is to detect the break, but if the break were in a wall or floor you might / will not see it.

The toilet being secured is good but means nothing as far as a vent break /crack.

What is below the babys room and what is below the bathroom that is next to the babys room? Another bathroom?

Does the smell get stronger / more pronounced when the furnace turns on?

Ammonia and hydrogen sulfide gases give sewer gas it's "distinctive" odor. Ammonia smells like, well, ammonia. Hydrogen sulfide smells like rotten eggs. Sewer gas also contains methane, which is odorless. These gases are all produced by decaying organic matter and/or animal and human wastes. To be exact, the bacteria feeding on the organic matter and/or human wastes produce the odor.

Health effects from these gases vary with how long and at what level the exposures occur. You did not mention any eye, ear, nose, or respiratory irritation. This suggests that the concentrations are low. Worst case scenario, if you are concerned about negative health effects then remove your children from the affected room and contact your local health department. It is possible to test for these gases and determine the levels present in the air. Both hydrogen sulfide gas and methane can pose fire or explosion hazards. If you believe these gases are in your home, open the windows, leave, and call your local fire department.

Worst case scenarios aside, you mentioned that when the furnace ran air came up through a crack in the ground level slab. It would seem that at least part of your problem is with your HVAC ductwork.

Now for some guesswork. You mention that if you block off the vent to the children's room the odor appears in your bedroom. You make no mention of the odor appearing in the whole house. Return air ducts have negative air pressure, i.e they pull air in. If the problem were here, though, you'd smell the odor throughout the house. Distribution ducts, on the other hand, have positive air pressure, i.e they push air out. My guess is that the source of the problem is in the distribution duct somewhere between where the distribution duct to your room branches off the main distribution duct and the register in your children's room and that the problem is residing in the ductwork itself, not outside of it. Let the HVAC guy have a crack at it and in the meantime heed all health, fire, and explosion warnings as you see fit.

The smell is irritating to the eyes and throat at times, and so bad you have to hold your breath when you go into the room. THe baby's bedroom is above the breakfast area/kitchen, and so is the bathroom next to it. There is another bathroom below, but its not underneath the baby's room. The smell does come up strong when the heat is on. I'm thinking it is a problem beneath the furnace. Do you guys think it still may be a break in the sewerline somewhere?? Just farther than 32 feet? I need to know, because I wanna tell the plumber with the camera to come back out here and do a more thorough investigation, he suggested flooding my sewer lines....what will that do? WIll we find a break if he does this?

As for the odor appearing in certain areas of the house, Yes . I've noticed it mostly in my baby's room, and in my room, and in my newborn's room. All on the second floor. Also located on the second floor is a laundry room, with a trap primer, we fixed that when we moved in because it had a pipe that was lifted out of it, and dripping into a tray. Anyhow....I'll be looking into it more tomorrow with the heating and cooling spe******ts. I believe they have over 25 years experience and can help me out. Hope to God we find a solution!

Has any one run a camera back through the duct in the babys room, to the furnace?

I'll take a stab at some of your concerns.

For your own benefit, ask the plumber specifically how and why he wants to flood your sewer lines. I would assume that it is because he believes the smoke tests were inadequate for determining if you have a leak in your sewer system and wants to do a water test. A water test will involve temporarily plugging the system and filling the drain, waste, and vent pipes with water. The water level is then monitored for at least 15 minutes; longer would probabaly be more appropriate in this case. If the water level holds, then you don't have any leaks. If the water level goes down then you have a leak. Simple and effective.

If the smell is "irritating to your eyes and throat at times, and so bad you have to hold your breath when you go into (a) room" then no one, particular small children, should be occupying that room until the problem is resolved.

There are so many possibilites for the source of this problem that the only way to resolve is through a carefull, systematic approach. You could have sewer leak beneath the house, problems with settling that have affected your foundation, sewer pipes, and/or HVAC, a problem with your furnace, a mold problem that mimics the smell of sewer gas, or any number of other issues that are impossible to troubleshoot via email.

Again, each system will have to be checked out thoroughly and systematically. I'm sure the plumber with the camera was trying to be helpful, but running a camera only part way down the affected duct was a waste of time. As Cass alluded to, and I don't mean to sound like I'm chiding you, if your going to check a duct you've got to go from the register back to the furnace. For the benefit of you and your family, make sure the person coming out to look at your problem has dealt this sort of thing before and has the time and neccessary equipment on hand to get the job done.

Best of luck to you. I'd like to know how it turns out.

You mentioned you had a broken pipe near the laundry that was fixed. Depending on how long it leaked, is it possible that there is a major mold accumulation between the floor and the ceiling below?

Was the state of the heating system discussed in the P&S agreement? I would think that it should have been. You might have some recourse against the seller. I'm not a lawyer or a pro, but it might be worth a call to a lawyer to ask. Given the state of things, there could be anything down there.

A new discovery.......I smelled the sewer gases in the bathroom next to the baby's room tonight. I have smelled it there on a few other occasions but always waved it off....becuase it is more potent in the baby's room. I noticed some ducts have what looks like aluminum or duct tape in them. Is this normal?

If the people did not move out of state, and lived in the home for more that a few months you most likely have an action against them.

If they are out of state it will not be worth chasing them.

Have a lawyer write a letter outlining what you have found and that they have 15 days to contact you about what they are going to do about it or you will start legal procedings.

Don't do anything to the system until you talk to a lawyer as you will be destroying evidence, this includes the aluminum foil, tape, everything.

I got their mail and opened it with my mail by accident. It was a letter for the wife being recalled back to work. It seems she got laid off, so I contacted her agent, and her agent picked it up and sent it to her. When her agent came over here I asked her about the odor, and asked her to ask them about the odor and to contact me. She did'nt, so I contacted her 2 days later, and she told me she didn't have their number but that she had their address. So I asked for it, and she said she didnt have it , that she'd have to look it up and get back to me. Funny, cuz the day she was here she was telling me that she was going to call them and ask. And she also told me that they were very happy to have recieved the letter from her. And that she would call me back so that I could contact them. She hasnt called me back. I really have my hands full with the sewer problem in my house, and my two babies....sometimes I feel like my head's going to explode..........and this is just the beginning.

With all these experienced plumbers around here one must also have some seagoing experience that could address an exploding head.

But if my humor doesn't help let me offer my sympathy. And if it was me I and the former owners wern't very nice I would bankrupt them. But then sometimes I am not all that smart.

I bet that realtor is not feeling very comfortable either; I wonder what a lawer would say about their liability here.

get their address.....

Just my $.02 here. You mentioned the mail you opened of theirs. Did they fill out a forwarding address with the post office??? Maybe your lawyer could send the letter to them at your address and see if it gets forwarded to their new address. You can also call information and see if they are listed, provided you have their last name. That is one way of publicly getting their address and phone number.

Hope this helps.

Many times the letter will work if they want to avoide lawyers fees. I would have the lawyer shotgun letters to everyone involved even the realtor.

I would talk to the realtor and explain what you have found and that they need to talk to the seller to avoide a big mess.

Even if they are not liable they would not want the neg. publicity and might talk to the seller and try to convince the seller that they need to do something to avoid lawyer fees on top of the repair bill.

There should / might be SS #s on some of the closing paper work and you can find them (sellers) through that and where they work.

If they lived there for a year and you have their name there are many people locating services on the web that can find them for between $25-50.00

If they bought another house there will be a public record that willl give you the address of the house.

Everything you found in the house needs to be legaly documented.

I am curious as to what your repair / correction cost will be.

Just my 5 peso's on the matter

Envision this possibility. You buy a car, drive it for a year, decide to sell it because you need a larger car. When you trade it in, you find out that the dealership you took it in trade is stating that there was major damage done to the rear end of the car, even though YOU....and YOUR INSURANCE COMPANY both know that you did not have an accident the year you owned the vehicle. Apparently someone "washed" the title on the vehicle before you bought, unbeknownst to you.

See where I am going with this?

There is a possibility that these 1 year homeowners have not a clue of what's going on......but then again they might. How often do you buy a home and leave a good deal of things in the house the same way you bought it? More often than not,,,,,,short of lipstick and rouge (Paint and new light fixtures,appliances,wall switches)

I just thought I would portray this other side of the coin (peso) so that you understand that these people might be embarking on total disaster without them even causing the problem to begin with. I'm sure they will be quite devastated if the above situation is true. If they owned the house for a number of years...........then I could see this play out as negligence on the seller's part. Heck, you can't even go after a landlord who's owned a piece of property for years and find disaster in the walls because THEY NEVER LIVED IN THE RESIDENCE.

If you bought the home "AS-IS" and no home inspections were done.........all bets are off in this matter as to what foothold you have against the 1 year homeowners.

I had an inspection done....as a matter of fact, hes coming out today to do a re-inspection. Boy did they pull the wool over our eyes!

How long after you moved in did you notice the smell?

Mycotoxicosis

Sorry for the wait in my reply Goldy.
The disease I am refering to is mycotoxicosis. It is caused by the ingestion of mold or its spores be it by mouth, skin, or airways. Remember recently the dog food cases where several dogs became sick and died, that is one representation of mycotoxicosis.
It would take a lot of space to fully explain here this disease and its process so I will try to make my point short:
Mold is bad, and not just because it doesn't smell good and destroys things. Even in the Bible (whether you believe in it or not, that is irrelevant here) there are very specific ways of dealing with household molds. Why? It can shut down the entire body in its worst case scenario which can lead to death. It can cause respiratory distress, fevers, coughing, sinus problems, allergies...the list goes on. The typical belief is that it only attacks the immunocompromised, elderly, and babies, but this simply is not true. It's only true in the fact that these classes of people will generally fall ill first. A typically normal and healthy adult can become sick just as in the case of a cold. As for the young lady I referenced in my first response, she was not immunocompromised, somehow she inhaled enough mold and it colonized in either her bronchus or lungs and it gained entry to her blood stream and the toxins produced by the mold shut down all her organs. When she first became sick and went to her doctor for a productive cough it was diagnosed as bronchitis and treated with an antibiotic, a typical and reasonable diagnosis and treatment for the history she gave and symptoms. Unfortunately antibiotics don't kill a mold, antifungals do. Within a few days she went into respiratory distress, was admitted to a hospital and was placed on a ventilator. Sometimes it's too late to combat an infection. And this was that kind of case.
Don't think I'm ringing the doomsday bell, but be aware of your family's health and the exposure time...if this is indeed a mold. If a family member becomes ill with anything see a doctor promptly and explain what's going on in your house, give him/her the information they need to make an appropriate and diagnosis and treatment.
I haven't read every reply but it may perhaps be time to start looking for leaks in the roof that may be causing water to run down a wall. Or condensation collecting from an uninsulated air conditioning duct and collecting on wall or ceiling insulation. Unfortunately, insulation will hide a leak for years because there's just enough moisture to create a breeding ground but not enough to damage drywall thus making it extremely difficult to pinpoint the location of this issue. I would try to start thinking outside the box.
Also if you desire more information on mycotoxicosis, the internet, library, or doctor is your best resource.
Good luck to you and your family!

An additional note: as for fighting this issue, don't waste your time with the Better Business Bureau. They are as useless as teats on a boar. Even if you have the best case and win a legally binding arbitration. They are as slow as mud and very pro business. You will get nowhere.
Apologies to those I offend.

Hi. Thank you for the information. I had a guy from the city here today, a guy from the local health department, and the inspector who inspected my home last year. They all concluded that it is a sewer break underneath the slab somewhere beneath the furnace to the bathroom in the hall. They said a lot of camerawork needs to be done to find the break so that it can be fixed. The man from the local health department stated that there was no mold. I told him there was moisture in the duct in my babys room because the hvac guy's mirror got fogged up. And He checked them duct and looked for signs of mold, but told me that there was nothing but sewer gases, and that I have to fix the break, and make sure I get all my ducts cleaned afterwards to prevent any mold growth or further deterioration anywhere. I am taking this one step at a time. Please if you have a chance read the messages I've posted. Let me know what you think. Thanks.
Goldy
PS I live in Cleveland (strongsville) Ohio....we're almost neighbors