Sewer gas in your home can cause sewer gas poisoning, often referred to as methane gas poisoning. If you notice the foul smell of sewer gas in your home there are five possible causes that allows sewer gas to back up from the public sewer system or your septic tank and enter your living space. Here are the possible causes working from the most likely cause to the most differcult and less likely:

1. If there is a water trap (sewer gas trap) in the basement floor drain, laundry tub or wash basin that has dried out from lack of use, the sewer gas will simply escape into your living space. Water in any trap of unused drains will eventually evaporate over time. That would allow sewer gas to come up through the drain into the living space. You can solve this problem just by dumping some water into the drain to restore the level in the trap. If you add a couple of tablespoons of cooking oil into the drain the floating seal of oil will keep the water from evaporating as quickly.

2. Check for a cleanout plug inside any floor drain. Remove the grate that covers the opening and make sure there's a plug inside the cleanout line. If the plug is missing, the sewer gas will have a direct path to bypass any water trap. Sometimes, these plugs are removed to clean sewer lines and not replaced. If the plug is missing replace it.

3. The water in the toilet trap can also evaporated, causing sewer gas to escape into the living space. A long period of disuse can cause this. Simply flushing the toilet will restore the water in the water trap.

4. Another possibility could be a bad wax ring seal between the toilet flange and the base of the toilet. This wax ring can leak if the toilet moves slightly causing the seal to break. The leaking seal can allow sewer gas to find its way out from under the toilet. If this is the case, remove the toilet and replace the wax ring. If the toilet moves or rocks, use plastic shims between the base of the toilet and the floor and caulk the joint. This will ensure that the wax ring will not be damaged.

5. The most difficult possible source of sewer gas leakage is a broken or cracked sewer line or a loose connection joint in the ceiling or buried in a wall. The only way to find this problem is to use your nose to start investigating, starting with all visible joints. If you can't detect the leak, contact a plumber who has the equipment to find the leak.

Locating the source of leaking sewer gas in your home can be a tough task because of the number of possible sources. If you use a systematic elimination process by starting with the most obvious cause to the most unlikely, you can find and eliminate the leak.

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