Need Help: Dishwasher smells like sewage

H

HornBud

2,500+ Posts
I know, I should just tell the wife to take a shower right......


I kid I kid...Anyway, we are moving into a house that has been vacant for about 5 mos. The dishwasher smells like it has a direct line to the shitter's exhaust or something.

Is this something that can go away after a few washings? Do I need to pull it out and examine what's connected to what?

I have no idea where to start on this one, so anyone with experience with plumbing or even this situation, please let me know. Thanks
hookem.gif
 
First test it to make sure water flows unblocked to make sure there is not a clog. It could be some crusted food item, dead bugs or just that it was dormant and a combo of odors.

There are some homeopathic or natural ways to get rid of odors using things like lemons, oranges and other citric acid items and baking soda. There are others that escape me right now.

There is also a foaming product that you spray into the drain. It is Orange scented and based. It did the trick for me when I ran into my disposal got something go fragrantly wrong a couple of years ago. It worked like a charm. I got it at HEB for about 3 bucks.

Hope some of this helps but for sure make sure you get free flowing water and no backup in that line. You may want to snake it a time or two for good preventative measure before putting the smell good and odor killing things down there.
 
I read that wrong. I read it as dump a beach blonde in there and make sure its hot, meaning she is hot. Whew.
 
I suppose there could be a problem like a tree root blocking a main drain pipe, but it is likely just not using any showers, toilets, or sinks for several months-once you start flowing some water down the different drains, you probably will see the end of the odor.
I read where the drain traps on sinks and tubs not only catch small items dropped accidentally into them, but they also hold a couple of inches of water which blocks odors from coming back up through the drain. So if they are never used and the water evaporates, you get some nasty odors.
You could pour some boiling water down each drain a few times, could be old hair, grease, soap, whatever congealed in there.
 
If the dishwasher is installed correctly or typically, it is close to impossible for sewer gas to show up in your dishwasher. It's more likely that there was food in the dishwasher when the house was vacated. Even if it IS sewer gas, the fix is most likely the same. Run water in all the lines in ther house to prevent more gas from wafting up and run the dishwasher to remove the smell. The only way for sewer gas to escape into a properly plumbed house is for the traps to dry out. That is their only purpose that I am aware of. In a MUCH older home or one that wasn't inspected when the D/W was installed could have a direct drain into the sewer, but even that is fairly easy to fix. Rerun the D/W drain into the handy place on the side of your disposal where it is supposed to drain. It's most probably a black flexible hose. It needs to have an anti-siphon valve on it. Most dishwashers come with all the fixins to do this.

I still think that it's just food in your dishwasher. All the suggestions about cleaning this or that will do nothing for the dishwasher. They may not be bad ideas, but they aren't relevant to the D/W. The bleach recommended by BW ought to kill off any smell from food left in the D/W when it was shut down.
 
Nick Danger is right. Your odor is probably old food particles rotting away inside the pipes. The garbage disposal is usually connected by a pipe to the place where the dishwasher connects. Maybe you should take those pipes apart and clean them out real thoroughly. I have to do this periodically, and disposal crud builds up in there, like shredded potato skins. They can clog the pipe, or start smelling bad.
I bet this step would fix your problem.
 
You could also invite Accuratehorn over to your place. Feed him and promise him drink if he does it for you! Just don't leave any magazines on the floor or allow cats to fight.
 
I'm doubting it's the food, based strictly on the smell. The backflowing of sewage gasses seems to be the best bet. The smell is identical to that of when a toilet is removed, or when a trap is removed from underneath the sink.
 
If sewer gas COULD get into your dishwasher, why would it choose to accumulate there instead of going out one of the vent stacks?

Let's say that you DO have a trap between the dishwasher and the sewer line. If it dried out you could have sewer gas flow back up into the "fixture(s)" that the trap protects the home from. In order for that gas to escape into or through the fixture in any measurable quantity, there has to be a missing or blocked vent. That would cause your sink to drain, then burp, then drain, then burp. Not mentioned. A blocked vent stack is still not going to let gas into the fixture unless you have a dry or missing trap. In short, in order for true sewer gas to get into your dishwasher, you have to have either no trap or a dry trap AND a blocked vent AND (most probably) a direct drain into a sewer line. All of this is HIGHLY unlikely. It would pretty much mean that your seller put the dishwasher in so totally wrong and out of code that it boggles. Most dishwasher drains have a belly in their line that effectively serves as a trap even if the plumbing system proper has no trap.

All of that IS possible, but it's just so improbable that you really have to go with the theory that it's just food in the dishwasher or its drain. When the fix for that is SO simple and cheap that even if you just KNOW that it's sewer gas you really have to try the food theory first. If simply running water to fill up traps and asking the dishwasher to sanitize itself (kinda what they are designed to do) doesn't work then you are looking at code violations that will probably mean you have to hire and pay a plumber to rework the DWV (drain/waste/vent) system.

I am fairly sure I know what **** smells like and I have actual experience with drain lines that ONLY drain gray water onto the side of a hill. Those lines used to get clogged all the time (they were too small and had a huge belly) and the stuff that fermented in those clogged lines smelled like ****. Well, not like ****, but they certainly had that nasty drain line aroma that is so offensive.

*just as an aside, a belly (if one doesn't know what that term means) can be illustrated easily. Draw a straight horizontal line on a piece of paper. Then draw a straight line that starts an inch above the first line and travels, without bends, to intersect with the first line on the opposite side of the page. A "V" turned on it's side, if you will. >

That represents a proper drain line (sort of). A belly occurs when the second line starts, say, an inch above horizontal, dips below horizontal and then rises up to intersect with the horizontal straight line before ending up 1/2 inch above horizontal. ~ (not a very good illustration - move the slashes up at the beginning and down after the tilde)

That line will drain, but it you don't blow out the gunk every once in a while, it serves as a great accumulation place for food and grease and other stuff (soap) that makes gray water gray. If if dries out, it can form a partial or total plug.

That's what happened at the ranch house where I gained most of my personal experience with this particular situation and, because certain family members put tons of food down the disposal without really running the hell out of it, I had to snake it out on a regular basis. Trust me, it smells almost exactly like black water lines.
 
Was your house a foreclosure?

If so, it's possible the unhappy former owner took a **** in there on his way out the door.
 
Wasn't a foreclosure, it's my Uncle's house and I'm just renting it for now. He bought it for his daughter to move into while she lived in Austin, she brought in some roommates, she went back home, roommates stayed, and just conveniently forgot to pay rent. They moved on sometime in Nov or Oct and the house has just been sitting vacant. Although I suspect the roommates were bouncing in and out of the place so as not to spill beer on their carpet.

I'll have to give that Orange stuff from HEB. The appliances were all new, but the owners my Uncle bought it from were rather petty. When they looked at the house, there were flowers and whatnot running along the driveway. The day after closing, they were gone. So, no telling who they had put the dishwasher in.
 
Try taking off the strainer and removing any buildup or gunk. Then you may need to clear or replace the drain line. Check the line for loops or sags.

You might even check to see if there are any dead critters behind your dishwasher.
 
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