Shower odors may be due to bad trap
Q. I look forward to reading your column every week in the Daily Herald and respect your opinions. I need help. For five years, we have owned an 18-year-old, three-story townhouse. We have an English basement with no bath; the main floor contains a powder room, and the upstairs has bathrooms. Our problem is the master-bath shower, which leaks and smells. Based on the ceiling patchwork in our dining room - directly below the master-bath shower - the previous owners had repaired leaks, as the patching is in the same location. Our shower has leaked now three times, and we have repaired the dining-room ceiling three times. Twice it was the drain gasket; the third time it was the acrylic edge sealant, which we scraped and replaced.
Now it is leaking again, and we are so fed up that we decided to remove the entire shower enclosure and cap off the plumbing (we would then remove our soaking tub and replace it with a tile shower). Until that project can begin, we have been using the second bathroom shower, allowing our leaking shower time to dry out and not damage our dining room ceiling any further.
The drying-out shower is producing a sewer smell. No other bathroom, laundry or furnace room has this stench. We have tried vinegar, bleach, boiling water, drain-cleaning products, snaking, etc. And still, the smell does not go away unless we use the shower regularly. We do travel frequently, and when gone for a week or more, this shower has always had a sewer smell. If we cap off the shower plumbing, will the smell remain? Is there another solution?
A. Considering the fact that the sewer smell does not occur when you shower every day, it sounds as if there may be a pinhole in the trap below the shower pan. This would be causing the water in the trap to leak slowly, leaving the trap empty, which would explain the sewer smell, as the water in the trap is there to seal the sewer gases.
Or, if you have stopped using the shower but haven't removed it yet and capped the drain, the water in the trap evaporates. If you cap the floor drain, the smell should go away. You haven't said what type of shower base you have, but other possibilities are:
• If you have a terrazzo shower base, it may have developed hairline cracks that are hard to detect.
• Ceramic-tile grout joints can also deteriorate and start leaking.
• Over time, salts and other chemicals in the water can corrode the shower pan under the tiles, and it may have developed one or more small holes. Rather than give up on it and go to the expense of reconfiguring your plumbing fixtures, consider having a plumber check the condition of the trap, and if the leak is pinned on the shower base, replace it with a fiberglass one. Quality plastic bases last a long time.
Q. I have two wooden lampposts at the ends of my deck railing, installed about eight or nine years ago. They were made of six pieces of lumber (not cedar or pressure treated) glued together and turned. Both are now splitting open in two places, three separations each. How do I repair? I think I might be able to force exterior glue into openings and use four-inch screws to draw together, fill the openings and then insert wooden plugs. Do you know what kind of glue to use? Any other solutions?
A. Any kind of exterior glue should work - epoxy probably being the best. But if the pieces of wood are two inches thick, it's unlikely you will be able to draw them back together once they have warped. If the separations are not too big, consider filling them with exterior wood putty and repainting them.
Q. We have purchased a house built in 1946 with knotty-pine boards on the walls in the upstairs. We would like to retain the boards in our remodeling project. We do not like the old, dreary, varnished look and have sanded them to the plain, white board. We have been told that any oil-based clear coat will yellow immediately and more so over time. We like the white look, as it is sanded, and have been told that we have to use a water-based product to keep it as white as possible. Can you recommend a product that will hold up to average family use, keeping it as white as possible in the future? Do we need to find something that has UV protection?
A. You are correct on both counts: An oil-based coating will yellow as it ages, and a water-based coating is less likely to do so. Unless the paneling will be exposed to sunlight, there is no need to have UV protection. The best product to use to retain the light wood color of the sanded pine boards is also "green"; Vermont Natural Coatings' PolyWhey - a natural byproduct of the dairy industry - uses whey protein that forms a hard coating on any wood product, furniture and flooring. The manufacturer claims that PolyWhey does not yellow when exposed to UV light. PolyWhey comes in gloss, semi-gloss and satin, and you may want to use two coats to survive what you call "average family use." Visit the company's Web site at www.vermontnaturalcoatings.com, where you can find a dealer in selected states, or you can order PolyWhey from Vermont Paint Co., 17 Adams Dr., Williston, VT 05495; telephone: (802) 863-1098. Another choice is Benjamin Moore's Benwood Stays Clear Acrylic Polyurethane.
Q. Last summer a contractor installed beadboard on my condo's kitchen walls. I want to attach four pictures. As soon as the heat came on last fall, the sections started shrinking and splitting, creating unattractive cracks. The beadboard (called Adirondack Oak) was purchased at the local big-box store. The width of the sections varies; some are three inches, and some are six inches. I believe they were glued and nailed in place. How can we correct the problem without taking it all off and replacing with acrylic sheets of make-believe beadboard? That would not be my preference.
A. You have probably noticed by now that, with the humidity summer brings us, the paneling has swollen and returned to where it was before you turned the heat on. Unless you provide high levels of moisture in your condo, the same thing is likely to occur every fall and winter. Did the paneling come pre-stained or pre-painted on all sides, or was it raw and painted once in place? In the latter case, it would have been best to prime and paint every board on all sides before installing them; that might have prevented the shrinkage.
Q. Our two-story home has a second HVAC unit in the attic (installed by the prior owner). We have lived in our home since July 2006, and I wanted to double-check on the proper insulation and circulation required due to this attic unit. The air-conditioning condensing unit is outside on the ground floor. The attic is insulated with fiberglass insulation. Circulation is handled via several roof vents, and there are soffit vents on nearly the entire house perimeter.
I am concerned with ice damming since one part of the home consistently has icicles during the wintertime and because of these icicles, I don't believe the attic is insulated properly. Since we bought in the summer, of course, we didn't observe icicle formation. Our home inspector recommended adding a thin sheet of plastic (vapor barrier) over the fiberglass insulation - but won't that trap moisture and cause a potential mold problem? What are your recommendations for attic insulation and circulation due to this second-story unit? I'm sending pictures of our eaves and soffits that show some wood discoloration, but I don't know if coloration of the soffits is due to being made of a different type of wood than the siding or water damage due to ice damming? I have not seen any evidence of water leaking into the attic or anywhere else in the house. Half of our roof does not have gutters. I've attached a picture that shows water dripping from a snowmelt, and you can even observe moss growing here. I live in Mundelein.
A. I assume that the HVAC attic unit is also a warm-air furnace; you haven't specified. In that case, it will be extremely difficult - perhaps impossible - not to have ice dams and icicles. You didn't say where the fiberglass insulation is placed, but I assume that it is between the rafters since the home inspector suggested applying a vapor retarder over it (it couldn't be done if the insulation were in the floor). The home inspector may have suggested the plastic to provide an air barrier, but it would do nothing toward preventing ice dams. The several roof vents you mention in combination to the soffit vents are very unlikely to provide adequate ventilation, as not all rafter bays are ventilated. Continuous soffit and ridge vents provide the most effective roof ventilation, but even if you had that combination, it would not be able to handle the heat generated by the furnace and ducts.
The discoloration of the soffits is an indication that water backed up behind the ice dams, leaked into the soffits, froze and eventually melted. This is probably why you didn't notice any water getting inside the house; you are fortunate to have such wide overhangs. Allowing this situation to continue may lead to decay over time. You may want to try to install two-inch-thick aluminum-covered polyisocyanurate rigid insulation under the rafters to increase the rafters' insulation (if you can get the sheets into the attic), but I doubt this will work, as I have seen this done with little success.
A more drastic solution that will still not guarantee full success is removing the fiberglass and replacing it with a thick layer of closed-cell polyurethane sprayed directly onto the roof sheathing and covering the rafters - a very expensive endeavor with no guarantees. Removing as much of the heat from the attic as possible with a fan in one gable and a screened and louvered vent of the proper net-free-ventilation area to satisfy the fan's CFM on the opposite gable would help. The lesson here is that heat-generating appliances should not be installed in attics in medium to cold climates.
Editor's note: The answer to this question was deleted from last week's column. It is included here.
Q. We have a need for a total of five replacement trays and were wondering if there is a business that may specialize in replacement trays for 40- or 50-year-old recessed soap holders? If not, do you have any suggestions for removing the old metal-tray fixtures from a ceramic shower wall without breaking up the tile? The ones we have are not secured with screws but are evidently set into grout or something.
A. I have searched in vain for the plastic replacement trays you are looking for. Can't you use the existing metal trays as they are? It would be very difficult to remove the metal trays from a tiled wall. A tile setter, if you can find one, would be the person to call for a replacement. Sorry I can't be of more help. If anyone has a suggestion, please pass it on.
• Henri de Marne's column appears Sundays. He was a remodeling contractor in Washington, D.C., for many years, and is now a consultant. Write to him in care of the Daily Herald, P.O. Box 280, Arlington Heights, IL 60006, or via e-mail at henridemarne@gmavt.net.
© 2008, United Feature Syndicate Inc.