Alright home-bros, just wanted to gather intel on this shitty situation.
Last 24 hours I kept smelling a shit stink. I would ask my wife if she smelled it to which she replied no. I left for work yesterday, and when i returned I smelled the stink again. Checked everything around the house but couldn't find anything wrong. 1AM last night I'm trying to sleep and I smell the shit smell again and start tripping out thinking I'm going crazy or I got shit smeared on my moustache or gas leak or something.
Went down to check the basement. No water anywhere. No visible dry drains. But there was a very strong sewer smell in the mechanical room. I was not 100% sure if it was nat gas or sewer, but my instant gut instinct was sewer as I have a nat gas bbq and range and am somewhat familiar with the nat gas smell. This was more shit stinky.
I check the floor drain in mech room. There is visible water flowing into it from the humidifier and I see standing water down in the drain. I check the sump area and smell was possibly stronger from there. I run water down into the sump drain but again, see standing water at the base of pipe. I pull the sump cover and pit is completely dry. I ended up putting about 60 or 80 liters into the pit something like that to get the pump to run and discharge it out the drain.
I also checked my fresh air intake on the furnace, completely clean. ( cleaned it in fall prior to winter).
I did notice when I smelled the smell it felt like there was airflow coming up from the sump drain but I wasnt sure if that was shit stink air from the sewer or if that was airflow from the sump put through the discharge piping. If that's the case, perhaps the sump needs some amount of standing water to seal the intake/impeller of the pump to the discharge pipe?
Anyways, I am curious to know if there are any overlooked things based on others experience.
This morning, smell seems to have dissipated. I also poured in some green goblin main line drain thingy to the toilet last night and flushed in case there is a sewer obstruction developing. I did note that the sump discharge pipe flowed the water perfectly fine with no signs of slow flow / drain.
Thanks in advance.