Air coming up through the shower drain

I need help in finding out what is going on with my shower drain. It is an insert and my house is 5 yrs. old and on a slab. I first noticed a mildew smell coming from the drain and I also felt air coming up through it. I don't know much at all about plumbing and I thought it might be that the trap underneath it is cracked and the water leaked out somehow, it is not a sewer smell but a mildew smell. Could it be that the drain is not working properly and water is just standing in the pan underneath? If anyone knows what this might be and how to fix this it would be appreciated.

I am going to guess that your shower has no trap.That would explain the air coming out and the odor coming from it. It could also be a broken trap or a non vented trap that is siphoning out. The base could also be leaking causing an odor.

"pan underneath"

firefightinb said:

... my shower ... mildew smell coming from the drain and I also felt air coming up through it.... Could it be that the drain is not working properly and water is just standing in the pan underneath? ....

Click to expand...

You are right.
1. You use the shower, so its trap should be full of water, which then stops air from coming back up. This is correct.
2. You hypothesize that the "trap underneath" could be "cracked and the water leaked out" which is definitely a possibility.

Then, you said something about water "standing in the pan underneath". What are you referring to?

David

The only way you will know what the problem is is to pull the shower base out and have a look.

How do you go about pulling the shower out? The reason I mentioned the pan is that I thought I read on another post that there was some sort of pan underneath a shower insert, I don't know. Does it just sit directly on the slab?