Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Property/DIY

Join our Property forum for renovation, DIY, and house selling advice.

Damp sewer smell from floorboards

10 replies

MammaDramaLlama · 06/12/2025 21:50

We've been having strong sulphuric acid type smell coming in the kitchen/dining room. Called a drains person out in Friday and he was here for hours trying to clear a blocked drain with the jet. Said everything was sorted, did a camera drains survey and said a few things need to be sorted (nothing crazy but just cracking pipes).

Anyway, since then we've had a damp sewer smell coming up from the floorboards on one side of the dining room against the wall. There is no smell on the outside. The floor is suspended engineered wood with underfloor heating and the smell comes irrespective of whether the heating is on or not. Could this still be a drain issue? My partner and I have never lived in a house before (only flats) so not sure who to call out to get to the bottom of this (literally).

OP posts:
BethButton · 07/12/2025 15:11

MammaDramaLlama · 06/12/2025 21:50

We've been having strong sulphuric acid type smell coming in the kitchen/dining room. Called a drains person out in Friday and he was here for hours trying to clear a blocked drain with the jet. Said everything was sorted, did a camera drains survey and said a few things need to be sorted (nothing crazy but just cracking pipes).

Anyway, since then we've had a damp sewer smell coming up from the floorboards on one side of the dining room against the wall. There is no smell on the outside. The floor is suspended engineered wood with underfloor heating and the smell comes irrespective of whether the heating is on or not. Could this still be a drain issue? My partner and I have never lived in a house before (only flats) so not sure who to call out to get to the bottom of this (literally).

There's quite a lot to unpack from your post.
Excuse the questions I am asking you to consider but it may help point you in the right direction.

*You mention a smell. If very unpleasant and pooey is likely sewage. Although that does not mean there is sewage coming into your house, but just the smell of it eminating from your waste drain that should carry it away from the house (bathroom, lavatories, shower cubicles kitchen waste) might blocked somehow and seeping in to the property from the back flow or an open vent somewhere. If it isn't your porperty's soil pipes then it might be a neighbour's, if you have any.

*You say that the drainage guy who came "tried" to clear the problem. Try isn't the same as suceeded. And that his CCTV survey revealed cracked pipes. Which cracked pipes, where, who's. Is he going to sort them? Give you a quote? If not, why not.

*With suspended flooring downstairs there will be ventilation bricks dotted around the outside of the house to allow air to circulate beneath the ground floor level. Go and sniff the ones near your dining room wall. Also if there is a manhole cover on your property see if you can inspect it yourselves. Get someone to flush the toilet (with some toilet paper in the pan) in the house, and another person waits to see what happens to it when it reaches the inspection chamber beneath the manhole.

There could be many reasons for the smell. He may well have un blocked it but cracked pipes are pretty serious can could be caused by settlement, tree routes, digging, or just old age. Not sure what age your property is?

MammaDramaLlama · 07/12/2025 21:09

Thanks for your response @BethButton -

  • The smell is definitely a sewage smell. I lifted one of the manhole covers and got the same smell inside.
  • The guy did clear the problem. There isn't a block anymore. He's giving us a quote to fix the cracks and descale the drain pipes. He also mentioned that the T connection at the gully has been done incorrectly and the a smaller pipe has been fitted into a hole meant for a larger one (didn't fully understand what he meant there). But he's also going to give us a quote to sort this which would involve digging into the side path of the house and inserting a new pipe.
  • There seems to be only one single airbrick in the outrigger which is where the smell is. There are some holes in the cement rendering under the floor level. None of this smells (the smell is only from under the floorboards). I've attached a drawing (the black rectangles are manholes).
  • The smell is from a couple of floorboards in the corner and the other side of the wall is the wet bit in the side path shown. The photo with the outside bench shows where the inside flooring is in comparison to the ground level outside.
Damp sewer smell from floorboards
Damp sewer smell from floorboards
Damp sewer smell from floorboards
Damp sewer smell from floorboards
OP posts:
Geneticsbunny · 08/12/2025 09:48

The smell could be sewerage leaking into the subfloor void from the cracked pipe. I would focus on getting that fixed first and hoping it solves the issue.

BethButton · 08/12/2025 10:34

From your photographs:

*The ground level at the rear of your house appears to be lower than the front of the house, so assume the house is on a hill sloping down to the garden. There is the appearance of re-mortaring of the brickwork which looks to be London Stock brick, ubiquitous around the capital's turn of the century properties.

*Possibly there was an side door or window, since bricked up. Can see the surface floor height of the suspended floor through the french window at the rear.

*Also noticable is the green algae on the side of the rendering close to where the smell is as indicated on diagram. This may be a "over-time" issue of water/waste pooling towards the area where the side return (concreted) surface area is abuts with the patio area with granite like slab surface.
That green algae type growth has not appeared overnight. When the patio was constructed the draining aspect of it would have been very important.

*I'm sure there is, but I can't see it, a damp-proof course within this area of the building. I trust the patio work has not "bridged" the damp proof course, but difficult to tell from photos.

*The unblocking will have no doubt helped, but the noticeable smell following it may be a lingering one released from the freeing up of the blocked pipe. The improved drainage and ventilation might make this vanish over time. However, I would have expected to see MORE ventilation bricks, as you have quite a significant area of suspended ground floor. They must be plentiful and not blocked.

*The fact that the drain expert saw the incorrect smaller pipe coupled into the T-junction which had a connection sleeve designed for a larger diameter pipe is of quite a concern. Clearly, any waste could flow around the small (undersized) pipe aperture as it is loosely fitting at the connection point. The drain expert is absolutely right to point out this poor workmanship, and this could have been like this for years - hence the green algae build up and likely development of a pong as it has pooled to the point of the waste build-up being so great, and such a "pile" that you notice the smell.

*Perhaps speak with the expert at length again, as I fear you should have this remedial work undertaken. There will be disruption and cost to you and your family. That side return to your property and where its abuts the patio will need to come up to attend to the cracked pipes and incorrect fittings.

*Prior to you having bought this property the previous owners had the work done. It will be difficult to find any guarantees etc, etc. They may have not been very decent professionals who did the work. Did your survey pick up on anything even remotely commenting on it?

*It may well be that you have to "take a hit" on this situation but it will be worth doing in the long run. Again speak to the expert, and get quotes from others too. You need to find out what is involved externally, and internally, i.e. is it a case of skirting boards off, floors up, underfloor heating (either wet (plumbed) or dry (electric) being replaced?

Every situation like this can be fixed, at cost and faff, and be returned to looking like new afterwards. It would best be a spring/summer job, which could give you time to look carefully at what's involved and finance it, or indeed potentially an insurance claim, if you can bear it!

But this is of course only my keyboard and me. I would recommend expert intervention from reputable firms. Some damp proofing companies may also be able to help with drainage, as well as outright draining experts. (Look out for accreditations that companies can attain, which helps to pick off the cowboys from the miriads of firms out there - having a sticker that says Master Builder on the back doesn't cut it).

Your situation needs to be "accepted" as one that isn't going to go away on its own, so you need to brace yourselves and do your research. Of course, flats have problems too, so don't let this put you off being a house owner. Soz for long ramble. All the best with it X

BadgernTheGarden · 08/12/2025 11:30

The smell may not be the drains but a dead mouse or rat under the floor or behind the skirting they smell pretty foul and much like sewers. The drain cleaning may have un-homed some rodent or other.

BadgernTheGarden · 08/12/2025 11:33

Did you have any problem with the drains, backing up toilets or drains overflowing? If the drains were really badly blocked I'm surprised you didn't have more problems than a smell

MammaDramaLlama · 09/12/2025 09:55

Thanks @BethButton for your detailed response. I found it very useful as a noob. And thanks to everyone who has responded. We found out that the sewer that runs through our house is actually a public sewer even though it's within our boundary and we could have called Thameswater out in the first place (would have saved us a couple of hundred quid). They came out yesterday within a few hours and looked at the main sewer again with a camera and couldn't see anything concerning. The smell I have now isolated to the pipe running from the manhole on the bottom left and connects up to the manhole on the top right. It runs parallel to the left hand side wall under our decking and then presumably under the outrigger at the top. I get the same smell from the bottom left manhole dnd various points in the decking. So the mystery continues.

OP posts:
Geneticsbunny · 09/12/2025 10:47

Does that pipe go under your house and i assume it isn't the shared one?

MammaDramaLlama · 09/12/2025 14:27

Yes that's correct. It goes from the manhole in the bottom left and eventually joins up with the shared pipe.

OP posts:
Geneticsbunny · 09/12/2025 19:24

And it wasn't checked by the drainage guys with their camera? I would assume there is a cracked pipe somewhere under the floor. Which is tricky because it will be a paint in the bum to access it to do a repair. I would get that drain surveyed with a camera but then you will probably have to have the floor taken up to do a repair unfortunately. A general builder should be able to repair it. You might be able to claim on your house insurance?

New posts on this thread. Refresh page
Swipe left for the next trending thread