Stink from kitchen drains :(

[RanCarr]

OK - I am working on a few assumption here

1) You have only one Gray tank
2) This only happens at the Kitchen Sink
3) This does not require you running water in the sink to get it to "stink"

Correct. There are "no" foul odors coming from the bathroom sink or bath tub. Only the kitchen drains. We have one graywater tank. We have a double sink with one P-trap. After running water it doesn't smell as bad... but the smell gets stronger and stronger as time passes when no one is running water. After dinner we don't usually run water much so by bedtime the smell is horrid, as it is in the morning. As I'm replying to this thread I'm taking the time to pour more hot soapy strong bleach down the drains. So far, so good, but I don't think the bleach/soap will remove what I strongly suspect is causing the problem - a heavy bacterial slime coat in the drain pipe and P-trap. We've about eliminated everything else and I have heard of these slimes in those sink food grinding disposal units, but we don't have one of those in this TT.

All of these assumption lead me to look at something in the Plumbing of the Kitchen Sink.

on thing that I though of today is to take a few plastic bags and some zip ties and cover the Air Admittance Valve and see if the problem persists. Keep in mind that this may cause some slight drainage issues in the kitchen sink - since that is what the AAV is there for. but if the smell goes away - then you have a faulty ( not worn out ) AAV that needs to be replaced.

My husband already checked that. The valve only works one way as it should. There was no smell in the thing when I took it apart last night. We even ran water with the cap off of it and no foul smells came up from the gray tank. It just gurgled a little until I put the cap back on. I could try the bag but the valve is a one way valve and airtight in one direction as it should be.

Just a thought - one more data point so to speak...

Good Luck in tracking this down - I vividly recalling my DW would not use the camper until I found and fixed the Smell Issue. That was Motivation to say the least!!

Kevin

I'm sure we have it tracked down to the sink down pipes and P-trap. The design of these, in this TT, for some reason, is allowing that same foul smelling bacterial slime problem some people have with their sink disposers to develop. I'm sure you've seen those disinfectants to drop down your kitchen sink disposer/grinder to clean them and kill the odors. But they're not going to work in a P-trap because there is nothing to slosh them around as in a sink disposer.

 

[RanCarr]

We use one of these to keep debris out of the drain. There is no way to flush out the Gray Tank like you can the Black Tank so these keep a lot of the garbage from being deposited in the Kitchen Gray Tank.

4 3/8"D Stainless Steel Sink Drain Screen

We got ours at Walmart.

BC

We already have something similar. This would not fit in the drains in our TT. As mentioned above, nothing larger than a grain of rice can get down the drains. The real fine screens wont work as they clog constantly as the sink is being used. The smell isn't from the gray tank.

 

[TandT]

IMHO the grey water can smell worse than the black tank. Especially from the kitchen. Trace

 

[RanCarr]

I believe the problem is solved. We'll just have to pour hot soapy bleach water down the kitchen drain every few nights and let it set to kill the bacteria that cause the foul odor. They'll be killed before they can cause fouls odors. We can live with that.

Actually the gray water itself doesn't smell too bad since I use an orange product for it and we empty the tank twice a week. But yes, I do remember it smelling pretty bad at times when the weather was hot. Thankfully that odor never came up into the TT.