First topic message reminder :

It is a question of smell....or stink on occasion. Our shower rooms, one of which in en suite. They pong.

I have read somewhere that this is a common problem, but can't remember where. Our house was renovated six years ago and new septic tank put in. Since then it has been empty and boilers drained. Sometimes it's whiffier than others, and it seems to come from both the shower and basin. The basin has no u-bend which might be a problem, is this right? And the shower in the en suite drains slowly due to a shallow fall on the waste pipe, so presumably that won't help. But the other shower is not as bad on drainage, but still pongs, not nice if we ever have visitors. Is this likely to be a problem a plumber needs to see or is there anything we can do other than mix the pong with air freshener, not nice?

We are still trying to find out who reliable tradesmen are locally but at the moment we have only had one name.....to avoid. It seems people are rather possessive of their good ones and won't recommend. Such a shame and not fair on the tradespeople.

Mrs Eq

I once read on one of the cesspit manufactures web sites of chemicals you can buy that gets the bacteria working properly.
(Just a thought)

Venting is probably the answer but if you can instal traps this will lesson the smells. If you cannot buy suitable traps then you can manufacture these by joining 2 elbows Well that's what I did and they work fine, plus a dead cat helped as well.

chrissybg wrote:

sounds to me that you have all had a bacteria problem. You haven't got the correct bacteria. It is easy to rmedy. All off cuts of fresh meat when cooking keep in the freezer until you have a couple of kios and then throw it into the cess pit or add a road kill the bacteria will start workking again in no time at all and the cess pit will be clean again. This needs to be done every year or if you have the problem arise. So feed it you will smell the difference

Weeelll, considering it hasn't been used for six years that sort of makes sense. When we first viewed the house in March I was sniffing around for damp and rodent infestation and didn't notice a smell like that at all. So if it suddenly started to fill again it would have to adjust good time. I bought some chicken necks for the dogs, would they do? Have very little meat with me being a veggie.

Mrs Eq

yes any meet will do any dead live stock road kills or any meet chicken cuts a couple of killos though and it will get every thing working properly again

That's how I started off my new pit..couple of kilos of old chicken.