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#1
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Soil odor?
I have a room in my house that is above a crawl space and soil. It's the only room like that.
In the winter and most of the time, everything is fine but sporadically, I have this horrible odor in that room. Brand new carpet (odor resistant in fact) -- bleached the floors before putting carpet down -- this has to be from the crawl space. This odor is always toward the late afternoon, when it happens, and it's not related to moisture -- if anything, I've noticed it more often after dry spells. I do notice a similar smell in "some" of my soil on my land -- any ideas? Not a methane type smell but a strong putrid "unusual" odor -- more chemical like. |
#2
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Soil odor?
mkr5000 writes:
I have a room in my house that is above a crawl space and soil. It's the only room like that. In the winter and most of the time, everything is fine but sporadically, I have this horrible odor in that room. Brand new carpet (odor resistant in fact) -- bleached the floors before putting carpet down -- this has to be from the crawl space. This odor is always toward the late afternoon, when it happens, and it's not related to moisture -- if anything, I've noticed it more often after dry spells. I do notice a similar smell in "some" of my soil on my land -- any ideas? Not a methane type smell but a strong putrid "unusual" odor -- more chemical like. Dead animal in crawl space? The soil itself should not smell, but check for moisture in there. -- Dan Espen |
#3
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Soil odor?
mkr5000 wrote:
I have a room in my house that is above a crawl space and soil. It's the only room like that. In the winter and most of the time, everything is fine but sporadically, I have this horrible odor in that room. Brand new carpet (odor resistant in fact) -- bleached the floors before putting carpet down -- this has to be from the crawl space. This odor is always toward the late afternoon, when it happens, and it's not related to moisture -- if anything, I've noticed it more often after dry spells. I do notice a similar smell in "some" of my soil on my land -- any ideas? Not a methane type smell but a strong putrid "unusual" odor -- more chemical like. Could be a broken sewer pipe, abandoned dry well, etc. It's difficult to say without knowing the age of your house and what transpired on that property prior to your arrival, could be most anything including buried agri waste, a natural phenomena like an underground spring, even a long abandoned outhouse... there may even be critters living in your crawl space. Your house could be built over an ancient cemetery, it happens more than one thinks. You may want to check the town records for prior owner's usage. Have a plumber/septic specialist check your waste lines, might be as simple as an abandoned waste line that wasn't capped. Btw, a crawl space should be ventilated to the outdoors, there are louvered/screened inserts one can install in the foundation walls... install at least two, on two different walls if possible for cross ventilation. Ventilators cost very little but require some labor... a good DIY project. Also a floor over a crawl space needs to have a vapor barrior installed, a plastic sheet with insulation between the floor joists. http://www.doitbest.com/4294967161-F...entilators.dib |
#4
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Smell of soil is due to the smell of two small molecules produced by small organisms. These small molecules are known as geosmin and 2-methylisoborneol (MIB). These compounds are mostly produced by bacteria belonging to the genus Streptomyces. In this connection it is worth remembering that the majority of antibiotics we use are produced by streptomycetes.
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