Sewer Smells for Dummy Homeowners

Venting a wastewater system

Who would really want advice from someone who doesn't know jack about the problem? Do you ask your hairdresser how to light the pilot on your water heater? Do you ask the guy who mows your yard how to treat achilles tendinitis? Of course not! So why would anyone want advice from Nicole Papagiorgio – a blogger with an AA in journalism (whoop-de-doo!) – to explain "What Causes Sinks to Smell Like Sewer When You Are on a Septic System?"¹ at HomeSteady.com. The answer to that question is simple: "You wouldn't!" and yet eHow.com paid Nicole fifteen bucks to write a half-assed "answer."

What they got in return was incomplete and doesn't mention the most likely cause of sewer odors in a building regardless of whether it's on a septic system or not. We'll get to that later. For now, Nicole plumbed her vast well of "expertise" and (after blathering about what a septic tank is and does) suggested three possible problems:

1. Your septic tank may be "full" -- a rather unlikely problem if your septic system was built right in the first place; but if it is full, you'll already know it because everything drains slowly and you get backups. A "sewer gas" smell would be the least of your problems. By the way, the three-year cycle on pumping? Nicole obviously got that "fact" from someone selling so-called honeydipper service. 
2. You have a leaky tank that's contaminating your water supply - frankly, the probability of that scenario is way down in the range of 0.000001. If your water supply was going to be contaminated, the leach field would have done it long ago.
3. You have bacteria growth in your water supply – somewhere like the friggin' hot water heater? Give us a break, Nicole!

No, Nicole, the two most likely causes of a sewer smell in someone's kitchen sink are pretty basic:

Either the J trap in the sink drain isn't filled with water or a do-it-yourself plumber (one who got the installation instructions off of  eHow.com, perhaps) didn't install the trap in the first place And the most likely cause – tada! – is that the vent stack on that particular plumbing line is plugged or, perhaps, leaky. If you don't know what a vent stack is, look it up. "Looking it up" is exactly what our Ms Papagiorgio didn't do! It's crystal clear that Nicole doesn't know about Occam's Razor, and has never heard the admonition "If you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras." For our money here at the Antisocial Network, that kind of silliness means Nicole deserves another (her fifth!) Dumbass of the Day award. Can we have a refund, Nicole?

¹ The original has been deleted by Leaf Group, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was   http://www.ehow.com/info_12039228_causes-sinks-smell-like-sewer-septic-system.html

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