We just moved into a cookie cutter new build house July 10th, 2021 so we’ve been here for almost 5 months. Mid September we started noticing something like a dead animal smell coming from our attached garage. (In our house the garage and basement are on the same foundational level) We thought it was a dead animal but now it’s December and the smell is the same. Sometimes it worse, sometimes it’s better. We submitting a warranty ticket and the builders plumbers camera’d the lower half of the plumbing (they said they were only doing the lower half bc according to them if there was a problem that’s where it would be) and they found nothing wrong. They did find a dead rat stuck in the sewer going out to the main city sewer connecting to our house so they thought they fixed the smell but the smell hasn’t gone away and it’s been two weeks. If it’s not a dead animal (wouldn’t the smell have gone away by now?) then I feel like it has to be a plumbing issue. We smell it outside right outside where the garage foundation sits too. It seems to originate in this back corner, you can smell it inside and outside if the wind blows right. It’s disgusting. Something has to be wrong but we can’t figure it out. We’ve had gas company, plumbers, and pest control out and no one can figure it out. It’s driving me crazy bc this is our first home and it’s brand new and this smell is awful. It wafts upstairs from the garage. If we keep the garage open it keeps it a bay and it doesn’t come upstairs, but why does it also smell bad outside right on the other side of the garage wall? I know we have exterior French drains buried out there, if there is something wrong with those, would it produce a foul smell? PLEASE HELP! We are at our witts end

Here is your plan of attack:

fact: the house is NOT fit for human occupation with the stench

fact: if you have a mortgage you have title insurance

give the above facts to: the builder AND your bank AND the title insurance co. AND (most important) an attorney




as an afterthought: ? did the smell start soon after you turned on the heat for the first time ?


if so: check any drain from the furnace for code compliant hook-up to the sanitary waste system

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"Measure Twice & Cut Once" - Retired U.A. Local 1 & 638



Edited 1 times.

a plumber can perform a smoke test to try and find the location of the smell.\
[www.google.com]

@ bernabeu (SC)

Thank you for your message. We are still having the same issues. Since my first post we have had our sewer lines camera-d twice and they found no problems. But the thing is, there are still pipes they haven't been able to inspect because they would need to tear down drywall in order to completely inspect with another smoke test. We got the smoke test done and since our drywall is up they couldn't see anything behind walls. But they did see smoke coming out of a vent cap by our garage sink. The thing is they already replaced that cap twice and its still leaking. So they completely capped it off and we thought that would for sure be the fix! But no, the stink still persists. It originates from the garage (or so it seems to)and wafts anywhere it can get. I smell it on our back patio off and on. There is always water in the trap of the sink, but we are asking the builder (their warranty department) to remove the sink completely because they keep blaming the sink. And we think the problem is deeper than that. So they will remove it and we'll be able to tell them "see it's not the sink it's something else." This whole process is very slow and our morale is very low. This is a brand new house, both my husband and I never thought we'd ever live in a nice house like this and to be running into plumbing/sewer gas issues a month and a half after we moved in is just so depressing.

We've had plumbers get on our roof to check the roof vent. They were only able to camera down the 4 inch piping and eventually their camera ran into several 2 inch piping that branched off into different angles. They didn't see anything wrong. So I guess we will need to ask them to get back on the roof with a camera that can look down 2 inch piping. Another rabbit hole...

Thank you for the plan of attack. I need to figure out how to contact our mortgage company and title insurance company and let them know what is going on.

I'm not sure if the smell started after we turned on our heat for the first time- good question. We first noticed the smell in the middle of September, in PA I doubt we were using the heat then.... But we got our ducts cleaned before we moved in because we had heard that construction dust and debris could be everywhere in there and we had an 8 month old at the time (now she's 15 months) She's almost spent half her life in a house with sewer gas problems. We moved into my parents house for a little bit bc of the smell when the temperatures dropped and we couldn't leave our garage door open anymore bc of the cold and pipes bursting (we used to leave the door open to keep the smell at bay) It just seems like everyone the warranty company sends here has no idea where the problem is originating from. Sometimes I wonder if this will ever get resolved at all.

Should they camera down the drain in the furnace room? But there is no smell in that drain. We can't tell where the smell is originating from because it is everywhere. Sometimes it's not as bad, and other times it smells like a porta potty.

Any other thoughts?



Here is your plan of attack:

fact: the house is NOT fit for human occupation with the stench

fact: if you have a mortgage you have title insurance

give the above facts to: the builder AND your bank AND the title insurance co. AND (most important) an attorney




as an afterthought: ? did the smell start soon after you turned on the heat for the first time ?


if so: check any drain from the furnace for code compliant hook-up to the sanitary waste system

@packy

thank you. we did pay $400 for someone to perform a smoke test. But the thing is, there are still pipes they haven't been able to inspect because they would need to tear down drywall in order to completely inspect with another smoke test. We got the smoke test done and since our drywall is up they couldn't see anything behind walls. But they did see smoke coming out of a vent cap by our garage sink. The thing is they already replaced that cap twice and its still leaking. So they completely capped it off and we thought that would for sure be the fix! But no, the stink still persists. It originates from the garage (or so it seems to)and wafts anywhere it can get. I smell it on our back patio off and on. There is always water in the trap of the sink, but we are asking the builder (their warranty department) to remove the sink completely because they keep blaming the sink. And we think the problem is deeper than that. So they will remove it and we'll be able to tell them "see it's not the sink it's something else." This whole process is very slow and our morale is very low. This is a brand new house, both my husband and I never thought we'd ever live in a nice house like this and to be running into plumbing/sewer gas issues a month and a half after we moved in is just so depressing. i wonder if we should rip down all the walls and do another smoke test. if only i were super rich!