San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
How to fix it when your kitchen sink smells awful
Larissa Runkle
Stop us if this sounds familiar: You’re sitting in your kitchen, and you notice an icky odor. Maybe it smells like rotting food, or even raw sewage. But how is that possible? You’ve done the dishes. You’ve taken out the trash. Your kitchen, you thought, was clean.
Don’t despair! Smelly kitchens plague us all from time to time — and the culprit is usually in your sink.
Whether you’ve been pouring chemicals down your drain in the hope of killing whatever’s living there or recently detected a stench, we’ve got you covered. Here are four reasons your sink stinks, and all the expert tips to make the bad smell go away.
There’s buildup in your drain pipe
One of the biggest culprits when it comes to a stinky sink is having lots of buildup in your drain pipe. This includes things like bits of food and grease, and all the bacteria that’s been growing around it.
“Drains will talk to you,” says Matt O’Rourke, president of Z PLUMBERZ . “If there’s something wrong with your drainpipe, you will hear bubbling and gurgling or visually see the backup from a slow drain.”
To unclog your drainpipe (and get rid of that nasty smell), O’Rourke recommends using a Zip It to clean the pipe,
then maintaining it with an enzyme treatment.
“Enzyme treatments are better than harsh chemicals because they’re living organic bacteria that feeds off biodegradable waste and turns it back into water,” says O’Rourke.
Your garbage disposal is gross
If you have a garbage disposal and haven’t cleaned it in a while, then there’s a good chance it’s the culprit behind your smelly sink. But to know for sure, it’s time to do a bit of detective work.
“To diagnose a dirty garbage disposal, first make sure the disposal is turned off, then use a flashlight and look down the drain,” says O’Rourke. “If the disposal is dirty, you will see gunk, mold, or food particles, and likely smell a foul odor.”
You can treat these bad smells and gooey gunk by running warm water in your sink while pouring a half-cup baking soda down the drain. If you have a dishwasher, run it with detergent but without any dishes inside. This will allow the cleaning product to reach your garbage disposal and disinfect any nasty stuff that’s been hiding out.
One final thing to keep in mind about garbage disposals is that they don’t last forever: O’Rourke recommends replacing yours every eight years. You have a dry P-trap
If you just got back from vacation only to notice a bad smell coming from the sink, worry not — it might just be that your P-trap is dry, and this is one plumbing problem that’s very easy to fix.
“If you look underneath any sink in your home, you should notice a U-shaped bend in the pipe,” says Jack Pruitt, brand manager for Benjamin Franklin Plumbing. “That’s the water trap, and if you ever accidentally wash your wedding ring down the drain, that’s hopefully where you’ll find it. But the real reason it exists is to hold water at all times, creating a water barrier between your home and all the icky things lurking farther down the pipe.”
But if that water barrier evaporates (like if you haven’t run the water in a while), sewer smells can make their way through the pipes.
“All you need to do is run the water for several seconds to refill the trap, then wait a little while to see if the odor goes away,” says Pruitt. Voila!
The real trouble is when you notice that sewer smell coming from multiple drains.
“If the water traps are full and the odor is coming from everywhere, you might have a bigger problem deeper in the sewer system,” Pruitt says, “in which case you’ll need to call a plumber to investigate the problem.”
Your vent pipe is clogged
“A vent pipe is part of your sink’s plumbing system and serves to direct sewer gases away from the home,” says Pruitt. “Usually, these vent pipes lead upward and out of the roof of your home to carry the scents out, but because of their location, they can become clogged with animal nests, snow, and other elements of nature. When this happens, the smelly sewer gas is forced back down into your drains, eventually seeping out through your sink and causing the stench.”