Musty smell coming from bathroom

blinko

Hi all,

I have a property that I rent out, its recently undergone a small refurb, new floors in all the rooms and fully painted.

1st floor victorian conversion, no visible leaks appearing downstairs

Unfortunately the bathroom has a dry / cold musty smell. If the door is left open its fine but if closed after 4 hours  you can smell it. Smell appears to come from under the floor.

I've tried the following and no change
- bath panel off, window open for several days
- cleaned out all wastes (sink and bath)
- all pipes are above the floorboards except when they enter the bathroom from adjacent room. No leaks in bathroom
- nothing coming from ceiling

I've taken the floor up (tiles) and back to floorboards nothing changed.

the problem I have is I can rent it out as it is but it will be a constant problem for tenants and If I can't solve it somehow I'll have to sell it

Just wanted to ask peoples advice on the next step, I'm guessing a leak detection company to come in and do their magic

horsewithnoname

is this this smell since the work was done? Was it caused in some way by the work? Maybe get the people who did it back to sort it if so. 

Otherwise you need a decent plumber and/ or damp expert to find the cause. 

blinko

Unfortunately not it was there before but the previous tenants didn't complain . 

horsewithnoname

Well if it was mine I’d get a good plumber in and get it sorted. Would you be happy to put up with it?

EssexHebridean

horsewithnoname said:

Well if it was mine I’d get a good plumber in and get it sorted. Would you be happy to put up with it?

The problem is, without knowing that is being looked for, it's going to be tricky to "get it sorted" isn't it. The very fact that the OP isn't "happy to put up with it" is clearly why they started the thread! 

OP - you say you've been back to the floorboards, but this is sounding a little to me as though it could be under the floorboards - might be worth lifting a few and taking a look? 

blinko

thanks for the replies, what do you think about the following ? get a leak detection expert in eg , gas, thermal, sound, salts etc that will rule out any leaks under the floorboards and then either fix them OR if no leaks then its down to ventilation under there

yeah good call to get floorboards up

EssexHebridean

I'd look under the floorboards myself first assuming the smell doesn't naturally start to fade away. This could be as simple as something like a small creature which has got into the space and then died there (sorry, grim I know!) in which case as nature does its thing the smell will disappear. It also might be that if it's not that, it will become obvious once you take a look what is leaking if it is a leak which is causing the problem. At least then you know what you are dealing with, and aren't paying someone else to do the legwork of investigating until you are certain of not being able to track down the issue yourself! 

blinko

thanks or the help guys, I have leak detection specialist coming in a week so lets see if they find anything. hopefully they won't in which case its then left over mould and should be just a case of changing floorboards OR removing from exisitng floorboards 

I'll let you know how it goes

blinko

just to update, leak detection came, jesus lord they are expensive £600 for 30 mins observation but any way. His recommendation replace bathroom floorboards and chipboard as he believes they have soaked up to much water and bacteria and all that growing in them hence bad smell. Have lifted the floorboards up and no leaks at all under neath Will be replacing all floorboards and will be doing this within the next 2 weeks hopefully this will resolve it