January 12th, 2010

After the Big Room Move of 2009/2010 (blog post on that coming soon), Jen and I have been spending more time in our back room here at home. This is where the computers are, and we spend more time in front of our computers than pretty much anywhere else. Right outside the door to our new studio/computer room is a small utility area, complete with washer/dryer hookups. We don’t have a washer or a dryer. Instead, we use the utility space for media storage. And since we’re not using the space for its intended use, that means those washer/dryer hookups are also not in use. And for awhile, that was no big deal. But since we started spending more time back here, we noticed something. Something foul. A terrible smell that would occasionally creep into the room. Theories were proclaimed as to the possible source. The most likely culprit was that one of our neighbors was burning/smoking/storing something, and every once in awhile, that something simply reeked. No matter. We’d light a candle and deal with it as best we could until the offensive odor dissipated. And after nearly a week of dealing with this on again/off again problem, it struck me.


This is either a dryer vent connection or a washing machine drain. It’s in the utility area mentioned earlier. And it’s not closed off. Which means it’s very likely that sewer gas is escaping through this opening, into our hallway, and then into our room. I know – it sounds disgusting. And it smells equally as bad. I did some research online, trying to figure out a way to cap the opening. I didn’t turn up anything useful. Jen and I took the above photo (on my iPhone) with us to a local big-box hardware store, along with some measurements of the offending opening. A nice guy, right at the entrance to the store, directed us to an aisle full of PVC pipes and related parts. After some looking around, we found what we thought would do the trick. A Fernco Quik Cap.

The plan seemed simple enough: Work the Qwik Cap into the opening of the drain/vent, maybe apply some caulk. Done. Well, it didn’t exactly go so easily. Before we left for the store, I had measured the opening and found it came out to four inches. And the Qwik Cap clearly shows its size as being four inches. But try as I might, I couldn’t get the Qwik Cap down into the opening. The cap was too big. I had a bright idea to cut some of the rubber off of one side, thinking that might alleviate the bowing effect that was keeping it from settling properly. But all I wound up doing was cutting myself (twice) and making a mess. A few more tries (and a couple bandages) later, I gave up. Out of curiosity, I searched out the Qwik Cap website. Imagine my surprise when I saw this image, and realized exactly how it is that these things are supposed to work. And when that little light bulb over my head illuminated, it gave me a couple more ideas: 1.) Get a smaller Qwik Cap, try same process over again. 2.) Insert a small piece of four-inch PVC pipe into the opening and then cap it with a new four-inch Qwik Cap. Ahh… possibilities.

Later in the day, we ventured once more to that big-box hardware place. This time, I brought along my tape measure so I could double-check the sizes of any potential parts purchases. We picked up a few different things; a PVC pipe with a cap, another (smaller) Qwik Cap, some adhesive and another thing that looked very promising. It’s an adjustable plug used for flow testing, and it’s specifically designed to close off drains, etc.

All the parts.

The adjustable tester plug.

Once we got home, the adjustable plug was installed into the hell mouth. And after a few good turns of its knob, it’s now sitting snug and secure. As the problem with the errant sewer gas isn’t omnipresent, we’ll know in the next couple days whether or not the plug has done the job. Hopefully, it does. ‘Cause were getting tired of this shit.

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