advantages of bottle trap vs ubend?

Martron

i have a downstairs toilet and sink with a bottle trap. and there is a constant smell coming from the sink. is it worth changin it to a u bend or is there something i can to the make the bottle trap work?

Stratocaster

Martron wrote: »

i have a downstairs toilet and sink with a bottle trap. and there is a constant smell coming from the sink. is it worth changin it to a u bend or is there something i can to the make the bottle trap work?

The idea of water in a trap is to stop smells from escaping. If you are having smells coming from a WHB then some how the water in the trap is not doing the job. You should find out why this is happening before replacing a trap.

Adjustable bottle traps sometimes are extended too much and the dip tube is not submerged in enough water. Sometimes negative pressure will suck the water out of a trap, if this is happening I would find out whats causing it. You might be able to introduce a vent into the system to stop the suction. There is more factors and it may take some investigation to discover the cause.

Fill the trap and flush a few toilets upstairs and see if that's causing the problem. Majority of the time its something minor.

Bottle traps are good because you can clean them out without disconnecting them from the WHB. A U bend holds the same amount of water to trap the smells but there's no provision for maintenance.

There is waterless traps available for those experiencing trap suction problems. Its got a rubber sleeve inside which expands when water flows through it and contracts when no waters flowing, stops the smell.

Sink is in your kitchen you wash hands in a basin.

Martron

Stratocaster wrote: »

Sink is in your kitchen you wash hands in a basin.

look at this i am learning from pros already ......

yeah i thought it was from the water being sucked out by other flushes too initially but there is not gurgling noise when i do flush the upstairs toilet!

the trap is stretched to its max though.

can i assume that if the trap is strectched to its max and there is no gurgling when tiolet is flushed a u bend will work or is it just that there is no water in the trap to gurgle.

Stratocaster

Martron wrote: »

look at this i am learning from pros already ......

yeah i thought it was from the water being sucked out by other flushes too initially but there is not gurgling noise when i do flush the upstairs toilet!

the trap is stretched to its max though.

can i assume that if the trap is strectched to its max and there is no gurgling when tiolet is flushed a u bend will work or is it just that there is no water in the trap to gurgle.

Water is funny stuff, it might not make any noise at all. When you say stretched do you mean its a flexible trap? Its very hard for the water to be sucked out of a bottle trap.

You always have to think back, if this problem never happened before, why is it happening now, what could have been changed in the house to make something happen.

The last time I discovered a smell from a trap it was coming out of a fancy chrome adjustable bottle trap. The basin was a new addition and the previous basin had not smelled. After hearing that, I knew suction was not the problem.

The trap had been adjusted past the full extent, even though water was still in the trap, smells could travel up the trap because a part of the assembly was not submerged in the water correctly.

If it is a bottle trap you have, you should be able to open it to see if you still have water.

If you post up some more info maybe I can pick out a few factors. Will check it out tomorrow.

Martron

smell always there.

there is a sliding mechanism that only moves wheni unscrew one end of it. of which is maxed out when joined to the outlets(outlet from basin and inlet to sewer)

water p1sses out of it when i unscrew ends and move trap laterally.

i took off trap today to see maybe something in it that made smell. although it did stink i could not get anything out of it.

Joey the lips

Its very unusual to have a constant smell out of your basin especially with a bottle trap. Sometimes a p or an s trap is fitted incorrectly and water leaks out but its very rare to hear of a bottle trap smelling

Have you considered there might be something cought in the overflow of the basin. Either that or sometimes the basin pip goes into a rubber bung in the floor. This could have poped out.

Can you take any pictures. It helps to see as much as possible?

Lastly this seems obvious but do you use your bathroom much. Sometimes the traps can dry out from not being used.

Joey the lips

Martron wrote: »

smell always there.

there is a sliding mechanism that only moves wheni unscrew one end of it. of which is maxed out when joined to the outlets(outlet from basin and inlet to sewer)

water p1sses out of it when i unscrew ends and move trap laterally.

i took off trap today to see maybe something in it that made smell. although it did stink i could not get anything out of it.

There is a possibly that the trap was plumbed wrong if the water is that bad but its so rare that i doubt it like I daid a few pictures would help

Stratocaster

Martron wrote: »

smell always there.

there is a sliding mechanism that only moves wheni unscrew one end of it. of which is maxed out when joined to the outlets(outlet from basin and inlet to sewer)

water p1sses out of it when i unscrew ends and move trap laterally.

i took off trap today to see maybe something in it that made smell. although it did stink i could not get anything out of it.

The sliding bit your talking about, leading to the 1 1/4" pipe in the wall or floor, that is pipework after the trap. I would need to know whats happening before that, from the WHB to the trap, its that adjustable?

If the maxed out bit your talking about starts from the WHB into the trap, it may be maxed out too much, that pipe must go into the trap, it must go below the level of the trap outlet, if its not below the level of the outlet, you will get a smell, even if the trap is full of water.

Its hard to describe, may bring you closer to the cause.

Martron

the trap screws directly to the basin and the adjustable part is below the trap. as in when i unscrew the 2 ends and pull the bit below the trap it wil come away from the trap with another turn.

Stratocaster

Martron wrote: »

the trap screws directly to the basin and the adjustable part is below the trap. as in when i unscrew the 2 ends and pull the bit below the trap it wil come away from the trap with another turn.

Still not painting a good picture, as joey the lips mentioned, a picture might be useful.

Couple of solutions, if its a suction problem.

Replace the trap with a waterless trap or an anti vacuum trap or should you have enough exposed pipe work you could cut in a tee and fit a AAV and leave the original trap.

AAV, an air admittance valve. This is a sealed unit, when negative pressure pulls on the unit if causes the unit to open, allows air in, stops suction.

The anti vacuum trap has an AAV as part of the trap. The waterless trap is the one with the rubber sleeve I mentioned a few posts up.