A viewer wrote in complaining about soap suds backing up in her sink, another complained about the suds backing up in the basement floor drain.Suds are something that drains have trouble flushing out, because they float on top of the water and tend to pile up in the pipes. First you should try t...
George from Edmonton, Alberta has a way of slowing down the evaporation of water from any drain that is rarely used, and hence put off the appearance of sewer odours in that room. He simply pours a thin layer of oil over the top of the water in the drain. Any oil will work, but mineral oil will...
Joan from Windsor, Ontario has one of those large square floor drains with a heavy metal grate over it that are so common Ontario eastward. There are under slab pipes that come in and out of this collection box. The concept was designed as a drainage system for an empty storage space called...
Typical of many older homes, two of our listners have large metal grates in the floor of the basement, covering a drain collection box. This box tends to stay wet, grow strange things and smell bad. That was acceptable when the basement was no more than a storage space, but when it is conve...
It is rather surprising to me how little information there is available on sump pumps and more specifically on sump pump pits.
We find two basic kinds installed in homes.
One is just a water collection box where perimeter drains flow and a pump then lifts the water up and away from the house.
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I have had several letters recently about bad smells and even flies coming up out of basement floor drains and sump pump pits. One viewer was quoted hundreds of dollars to break up the entire basement and replace all the sewer lines.
The real problem is usually that the trap under the floor has ...
