Bathtub Smell

It sounds like the sewer is backing up..I'm not a plumber so I cant actually say but I know that when my drains backup i use the polident tabs for cleanin dentures and i put two in the drain with the juice of lemon or lime and run the water it always does the trick..I use this for the garbag disposal too becaue that occasionally gets a sewer smell and the lemon juice dissolves the smell.

1 mom found this helpful

DO NOT turn on the water. When you can let it sit for a few hours try dumping a box of baking soda down the drain and then about a cup of white vinegar. You'll hear a sizzling sound - it's supposed to do that. DO NOT run the water over that drain for a few hours! Later - rinse. It's worked for me. Good luck!

1 mom found this helpful

Pour an entire ginormous box of baking soda down your drain and let it sit there a bit, then follow it with a giant bottle of vinegar.

You might also invest in a drain snake from someplace like home depot. Unscrew the drain in the bottom and snake it out, there might be stuff deeper down that is causing the odor.

I would snake and then do the baking soda.

1 mom found this helpful

baking soda; I have used it in my kitchen sink and it worked. I just run the hot water and start pouring. I usually use the whole box. Hope it helps.

1 mom found this helpful

what you are smelling are sewer gases. Turn on your exhauste fan and run it 15 mins. every couple hours daily! If not you and your family could be over come with sewer gases.
That happened to one of my family members. Bad enough they were hospitalized. Take care.

K.,

Call a plumber. A clog does not usually smell like sewer gas, you may have a problem with the "p" trap, which holds a tiny amount of standing water in a bend to keep the sewer gas from coming out of the drain. If there is a hole there, not only will you have a leak, but the water cannot stay in the trap to keep the gas out of your house. It also could have been put together wrong in the first place.

Marha

K.,

Unscrew what ever screws you can see from the drain. I am guessing you have hair stuck to one of the screws or drain parts. The hair collects other "gunk" for lack of better terms and becomes very smelly. See what you can pull out visually after unscrewing all trim to drain and overflow. Make sure as to hold on to screws you do not want to loose these down the drain. You might pull out a line of hair about a foot long. I have to do this every once and a while myself or I stand in an inch of water or so. Good luck. Let me know if you figure anything out if still problem message me privately.

You probably need a plumber to use a snake to completely clear your pipes of the clog.If you had to use it twice in a week then it never really cleared the whole clog. Bar soaps leave a nasty wax like film on the walls of your pipes and once mixed with hair and dirt from bathing and sitting in your drain lines it can smell terrible.I used vinigar and baking soda on my drains and the smell decreased greatly but it never completely went away until the maintence man used a snake on it. I would start using only liquid soaps and get a hair catcher for your drain as well and run very HOT water down your drain to help remove the soap scale from your pipes until you can get the drain snaked out.The baking soda and vinigar will foam in your pipe but is harmless , please be very careful with the liquid plumber it could easily back up and splash you and can burn your skin.

When we had this problem I did some research online and found out that the pipes for the toilet and tube are connected. When you have that smell coming from the tub, the problem is with your toilet. There are directions online on how to fix it, but that requires getting up on the roof. Sounds weird, I know. But there is a vent on the roof for all those pipes and you have to unclog it from there. I would suggest calling a plumber ASAP to get this fixed.

Ahh no. Liquid plumber does not disolve a lot of hair. It will do some but if there is alot it won't get rid of all of it. What type of stopper do you have? If you have a switch on the over flow drain you tub stopper has a weight like plug that drop to block off water when you open the drain the plug lifts up and everything stuck to it does too. So if you use liquid plumber, it only works on cloges in the drain pipe but the stopper may have a hugh amount of junk stuck to it that is lifted out of the drain pipe when you let the water out. Try removing the overflow drain cover and removing and cleaning off the stopper if you can. Also you can get a small drain snake at a local home store (like lowes or home depot) again remove the overflow cover and run the snake down it. We have the pop up kind of drain and have to pull it out clean the assembley every couple of months because the clog is at the assemble not in the pipe. Liguid cleaner will fall to the pipe trap and sit in the trap because its heavier than water. The hair at the drain assemble or drain plug does not disolve because was the liquid plumber falls past it it does not work on that hair. Good Luck.

Hi K.,

I agree, get a plumber....I think you have an issue as well. PLEASE ladies, I work as a wellness coach, DO NOT use bleach. It is very harmful and can cause many different types of illness's. It's not good for you nor your children. There are other alternatives out there, so please don't use the harmful chemicals that are in bleach.
I hope you get the problem fixed K..
Take care,
D.

I use bleach to sterilize my bathroom. I will put hot water in the tub,add bleach and let it soak for awhile. Sometimes the whole day while I am at work. Then I pour a little extra bleach down the drain after the water drains out. I have also us3ed white vinegar in both the kitchen and the bathroom drains. I also use white vinegar in the garbage disposal to eliminate the odor. I can not swear that any of this will help but they are not expensive to try.

Not sure what to tell you about the smell, we have the same issue but only in the summer when the attic fan is on. Weird, I know. We just keep a plug over the drain and favor the other bathtub/shower.
But as far as the hair goes, as I pull hair out while washing and it's on my hands, I stick it to the shower wall and just make sure I clean it off when done (I use a small piece of toilet tissue to keep it all together and just put it in the trash). A little bit will still get down the drain (and it's kinda depressing sometimes to see how much really falls out at each washing!), but we never have clog issues (I'm the only female in the house).

K.,

You can also use bleach but DO NOT MIX IT WITH ANYTHING ELSE! One apartment I lived in long ago was configured so the dishwasher drain somehow met up to the bathroom drain. Well, I put bleach in my bathroom sink and tub at the same time the dishwasher was draining and the whole apt filled with toxic fumes! We had to run outside, coughing and sputtering.

But bleach works as a temporary fix. I regularly have to bleach my kitchen sink drain.

do you have city sewers, or septic tank? we have septic tanks here, and yeah we get that nasty smell. alil bleach down the drain seems to help for alil while. GL

try putting baking soda and vinegar down there

Sounds like you have a backup problem in the pipes. I would call in a plumber and have it fixed.