You may not even think about your home’s sewer line until you have a serious and disgusting problem on your hands. You may even miss the early warning signs because you blow them off, believing they’re something other than your sewer line. Then, there’s trouble. The good news is that you can remain on top of things with little effort because your nose is the greatest tool for figuring out that something is amiss.

The Smell of Rotten Eggs

That rotten-egg smell that you notice around your plumbing fixtures is sewer gas. These gases result from organic waste breaking down inside the sewer line. You don’t smell anything normally because water that sits in the P-traps below your plumbing fixtures keeps these gases from escaping into your home. If the sewer line has a crack somewhere, chances are high that the water in the P-traps will evaporate, allowing the gases to come up out of the drain.

You also should never smell rotten eggs after running the water. If this odor hangs around a while once you shut off the tap, these sewer gases are escaping from a crack in the sewer line and making their way inside your home.

Smelling Mildew and Mold

Failing sewer lines don’t just produce a rotten-egg smell. Sometimes, they can mimic the scent of damp towels, wet and dirty clothes, a forgotten mop bucket, or a damp basement. This happens when a crack in the sewer line allows dirty water to leak into the soil under your home’s foundation.

Mold and mildew feast on moisture. The more you allow the problem to grow, the moisture along with the mold and mildew quietly takes over the space behind your walls and underneath your floors. Long before you see a dark spot on the wall, you’ll catch a musty earthly scent near the floor.

Peculiar Odor in the Yard

Go out to the yard and inhale deeply. You should never smell foul, swampy water near your sewer line because this means that it is likely failing. Raw sewage feeds the grass when the pipe cracks. In the area of the yard where the sewer line is broken, the grass might look a lot greener and lusher. But the air above it will smell putrid. The wastewater is completely saturating the dirt, leaving the fluid with nowhere to drain. Walking over that area might even feel spongy, a dead giveaway that a pipe has collapsed completely underneath the dirt.

It’s much easier to fix a small crack when you first notice an odd odor. But brushing off these bad odors for a long period of time can cause you to face some serious problems. Your sewer line will eventually back up, and you will have to spend significant amounts of money rectifying the issue. If you have concerns or require sewer line services, contact NCPD Service in Asheville, NC.