It’s early in the morning, you walk into your bathroom and it smells musty or like rotten eggs. Your bathroom doesn’t look different from the previous day, so what changed? If the smell is wafting from your sink drain, it’s likely you’ve had a problem building up for time and now you’re starting to notice it. Rooter service can eliminate the smell, but before calling your local plumber, try to take care of the issue yourself first.
Mold
Mold flourishes in wet areas, making the bathroom the most common place to find patches growing on the walls, in between tiles, and inside the drain. If a musty smell is wafting from your drain cover, you should inspect for mold growth. Mold can be cleaned with a mold & mildew remover that is sprayed on and wiped off. It can also be scrubbed with a drain brush, a reliable plumbing tool you should have at home as part of your everyday toolkit. If the musty smell doesn’t go away after cleaning your drain, drain cover, and hair strainer, rooter service can take care of it.
Biofilm
Biofilm is a slimey and glue-like substance that forms from a buildup of bacteria. It smells like rotten eggs and can cling to surfaces around the shower drain and inside. The most common type of biofilm in bathrooms is pink mold (though it is not mold). It has a pink or orange tone and often is spotted as a ring around the drain. Not only does it smell bad, but it can cause infections in wounds and negatively affect people with compromised immune systems.
To get rid of biofilm, pour hot water down the drain. Follow that with one cup of vinegar then half a cup of baking soda. Let that sit for two hours, then flush the drain with hot water. Finish off with a drain brush to remove the remaining, loosened biofilm.
Dry P-Trap
If your shower drain hasn’t been used in a while and has dried up, your p-trap might be dry. The p-trap is a dip in the shower pipe that keeps a small pool of water, blocking sewage smells from entering your home. After time, the pool will evaporate. This makes for an easy fix. Simply pour two cups of water down the drain and wait an hour. Then check to see if there’s a stagnant pool of water at the bottom.
If there’s no water, your shower vents could be blocked. Vents allow water to push air out of the pipes, but without proper venting, the trapped air can cause suction that pulls the water out of the p-trap. If your vents aren’t blocked, schedule a rooter service because you could need p-trap repairs.
