What do you want to do today?

I've been having a little bit of a problem with sewer gas, lately. Not the most glamorous subject, but why start with glamorous now? Anyway, the most obvious culprit is the floor drain in the basement. It's a relatively easy fix and one that we can do cheaply enough. If nothing else, we'll be able to check it off the list of possible offenders before moving on to something more expensive.
Step one was scoring the concrete with a masonry blade..which would have been significantly less dusty with a wetsaw..

After scoring the floor with the saw, we broke the concrete out with a sledge hammer and carried it out in buckets. As you can see, we ended up making the hole bigger so that we could work around the drain a little easier. Once we removed some of the debris from the drain, it really started smelling..hence the towel plugging the hole.

This drain is what they call a "bell" style drain. We'll be replacing it with one that has an integrated trap - the trap creates a seal which prevents any sewer gas from backing up through the line and out into the room. Our challenge now is rounding up all the pieces and parts to fit this non-standard-size clay piping. More tonight..stay tuned!