Home repair: Older home may need larger plumbing vent
Q. My house is more than 100 years old. I’ve lived here for 35 years. Lately, my downstairs toilet won’t empty out. I had a company come and they ran a snake down the bowl. The toilet still wouldn’t empty. Then they removed the bowl and ran an electric auger down the hole until they could see the end of the auger before it went to the line between the house and the road. They replaced the bowl then had me run water in the tub, sink and hold the lever down on the toilet for some time to see if there would be any back up coming from the main line. There was none. Also, there is no sewer gas smell.
The company’s next step is to run a camera from the house to the street to check for an obstruction. Can an obstruction be there for some flushes and be gone for other flushes? My other question is: Can the main vent pipe (above the roof) either be snaked out or flushed out with a garden hose? Another minor problem is when the downstairs kitchen sink has drained, there is a gurgling sound after about 10 seconds. Even after the sink has been treated with liquid plumber, it still makes the gurgling sound. Could this also be a venting problem?
A. In an old house, proper venting may be lacking, which can cause draining problems. It is also possible the vent pipe through the roof ices up in the winter and becomes plugged from the condensation produced by hot water used in the house. This is more likely if the diameter of the roof vent is less than 3 inches, as is often the case in an old house. Snaking or flushing it is not advisable, as it would need to be done frequently throughout the winter.
A better approach, if the vent pipe is less than 3 inches wide, is to have your plumber change it to 3 inches or a larger diameter from the attic floor through the roof. This will require changing the roof boot and, perhaps, some alteration to the roofing. A 100-year-old house probably has siphon drains in the kitchen and lavatories instead of P-traps; this would cause some gurgling if a large amount of water is drained at a time. Such gurgling can actually empty the trap and allow sewer gases to enter the house. After turning off the faucet, run the water for a few seconds to refill the trap.
Q. Is it practical to add a layer of glazing or caulk to the interior of double-pane windows? We have double-hung, double-pane windows with wood frames; they are about 15 years old and were manufactured by Rivco, who is no longer in business. During the below-zero cold spell in Vermont, ice formed on the inside of the windows along the caulk line on the lower edge of both top and bottom windows. When temperatures are 10 or 20 degrees above zero, no ice or condensation forms. Is it possible that the seal between the glass pane and wooded frame has broken? Can we reglaze or re-caulk that area to prevent cold air from coming in?
A. Condensation forms on cooler surfaces when the dew point is reached. In your case, it occurs when the temperature dips below zero; this is not unusual and does not mean the seal between the glass and the frame is broken. Considering the cold temperatures we experience in Vermont, triple glazing is desirable. In the case of double-hung windows, it can be provided by installing storm windows, so you can easily change from storm to screen in the spring. But it may only be worth the expense if you plan on being in the house for many years to recover the investment in fuel savings.
Q. Our home is a 54-year-old Cape Cod. We have become aware of an increasingly noticeable odor coming from the sewer in the laundry room in the basement. We have lived here for 27 years and did not notice an odor right away. The sewer is a trap, and we can never determine where any water may come from to travel through that area. It is unusual because it does not have an odor everyday, and recently, it is more noticeable in the fall and winter. Many plumbers have no idea how to get rid of the odor. One suggested using Clorox every week. At a hardware store, we purchased Drain Care, which we would have to use on a constant basis to cover up the problem. We would like to eliminate the odor permanently, but do not know who to contact or what we could do in case the solution is too costly, such as digging up our basement. I know the trap needs water or it will smell, but we would have to pour a bucket of water every day. Do you know why this is the only sewer with an odor and what we can do?
A. I am assuming you are referring to a basement floor drain. The increase in the sewer smell in the fall and winter is caused by the stack effect in the house when it’s closed up with the heat turned on. An easy way for the makeup air needed to even out the pressure in the house, which becomes depressurized by air exfiltrating through upstairs windows and other cracks and crevices, is to come up through the basement floor drain if there is no chimney to provide an easier source. It should not take a bucket a day to refill the trap; a few cups every so often should be sufficient, unless there is a crack in it, resulting in a slow leak. However, if you are referring to a sump in which there is what is called the house trap, it may be that there is a crack in the cast iron bend that is leaking water, causing the trap to empty. Your plumber should check this out.
Sorry, but that’s all I can come up with considering the limited information you have given me. A photo would have been helpful.
Q. I recently read a column of yours regarding venting through a soffit, and I had a related question for you. My master bath has a stand-up shower with a light in it, but the bath fan is about 13 feet away from the shower and the bathroom gets steamy, therefore condensing on the upper walls near the shower. I was thinking of installing another bath fan outside of the shower doors (how far from the doors?) to alleviate some of the steam and condensation. I would like to just duct this new fan to the soffit, which is only a few feet away and question if some sort of connection is required between the flex duct and vented soffit. I looked in the attic and the other bath fan is already ducted with a flex duct to the soffit, but the flex line is just laying on top of the vented soffit. Should I install some kind of termination through the soffit or is it OK just to lay the fan duct on top of the vented soffit? My dryer on the second floor also is vented to the soffit, but just lays on top of it. Any advice would be great.
A. The builder really messed up. Soffit vents are an inlet for air to ventilate an attic. Any fan venting through soffits is only introducing its contents — warm, moist air — into the attic, which is the last thing you want to do. Regardless of whether or not the duct is laying flat in the soffit or terminated through it, the outcome is the same. Bathroom and kitchen fans should be vented through gable walls, as I have mentioned many times before. Place the new fan as close to the shower as possible. A simple solution is to keep the bathroom door open after showering; this would dissipate the moisture a lot faster.
Q. I have a smell in my camp that I have not been able to get rid of. I believe it is moisture that is causing it because it became much better when I used a dehumidifier. When I turn off the dehumidifier, however, the smell becomes more powerful again. Is there someone I can have inspect my camp for moisture problems before I renovate the camp? We are in that process now, and I hate to put new stuff (walls, insulation, etc.) in the camp only to have the smell permeate those new things.
A. If your camp has no insulation in it now and the walls are all open and easy to inspect, you should be able to see if there are any signs of mold or mildew without having to incur the expense of having an environmental engineer checking it. A mildew smell is not unusual in a building that is closed during the winter with no heat. The use of a dehumidifier when the camp is closed and plenty of ventilation when the weather warms up should get rid of the damp smell. You could try spraying Nok-Out in the camp; it may get rid of the smell, You can get Nok-Out www.nokout.com. We have used it to get rid of a skunk smell with great success.
Q. For the last three weeks, we have had black ants about a ½-inch long in our house. I see the majority of them in our second-floor bathroom and our kitchen on the first floor. My husband has sprayed the outside of our house 2 feet up the walls and on the ground with Ortho’s Home Defense MAX spray each week. He has also used the same spray on the baseboard in the kitchen and bath several times, but we are still seeing ants. I always had trouble with the little sugar ants before I started using the Hot Shot ant traps that you recommended, so I hope you can suggest something that will eliminate these ants. It has been a very wet winter and spring. From talking to other people, we’re not the only ones with this problem.
A. The ants you see may be carpenter ants. They seek moist areas to build satellite nests. Kitchens and bathrooms are moist areas and attract them. It may also tell you that there is a leak somewhere, be it through a roof problem, leakage from an ice dam backup, plumbing, etc. Call a local, small independent pest-management professional (PMP) to investigate. If the ants are determined to be carpenter ants, he or she may recommend sprinkling a dry bait around the foundation, which the ants will take to their nest, feast on and die from it.
Carpenter ants are everywhere, particularly in wooded areas, and even where there are just a few trees. We have this pre-emptive treatment done every spring just to keep the ants in check. You do not need to pay high fees for a contract that includes regular checks often required by national pest-control operators. If the first application fails, my experience has been that the PMP will come back at no additional charge. Find one in your Yellow Pages under “Pest Control Services.”
Note: Here is a solution to the porcupine-chewing-on-a-cabin problem from a reader: We stopped the porcupines from eating at our cabin in Pennsylvania by placing several 50-pound cow pasture salt blocks around the cabin. The porcupines are after salt, so we first put the blocks close to the cabin and then kept moving them farther away. Now that the blocks are about 100 feet from the cabin, we no longer have the porcupines eating at the cabin.Ÿ Henri de Marne 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 email at henridemarne@gmavt.net.$PHOTOCREDIT_ON$© 2011, United Feature Syndicate Inc.$PHOTOCREDIT_OFF$