Hello Plumbers ? About Ejector Pit Venting.

[Hiball]

Im 3 mos into living into our New House, we have a full Bath in the Basement. I have ejector pit/pump that only handles the bathroom waste and lifts it to the Main drain which is 3-4’ from floor height.

My issue is we haven’t been using the bathroom much and I noticed that after 2/3 days it gets to stinking, and smelling like stagnant water. If I go into the Bathroom and run the shower/sink and a few flushes to cycle the pump a couple times. The stench will leave, but return a day or so later, I can only imagine that this smell will only get worse after waste starts flowing.

Long story short, I do have a issue with the lid seal, I guess some concrete dust got into the holes of the fit and when they tried to tighten down the lid it’s not making good contact with the seal.

Secondly I noticed that there wasn’t a Vent pipe coming out of the lid to feed the plumbing stack. I talked to my plumber today and he is coming tomorrow to address the issue, when I asked him about the vent, he said that it’s vented back thru the pit inlet. The pit does share a wall with the bathroom and the bathroom is on its own vent stack that exits the roof.

I’m not an expert on plumbing, I do know wet vents are used and accepted under code if certain restrictions are met.

Thoughts? Thanks in advance.

 

[Hakeem]

Your initial problem about the smell disappearing after running some water sounds like a leak in the drain pipe causing the p-trap to go dry and let sewer gas come back up. Running the water fills the p-traps again and prevents the ingress of the sewer gas. In my experiences the sump for the ejctor pump never smells unless you open it and I wouldn’t describe mine as air tight either. I’m not a licensed plumber but I do maintenance for rental properties so I’m around plenty of them.

if it was me, I’d apply some duct tape to the lid to seal it up real good and see if that fixes the issue.

 

[larry4406]

On our new homes with ejector pits, the lid for the pit has 2 holes in it with grommets that seal to the pumped waste as well as a vent line. Ours also have a rubber gasket between the lid and the crock flange that is sealed via bolts. We also use clear silicone and apply a bead around the perimeter of the lid.

The unit in my house is like I just described.

I am not a plumber, but I have never seen an ejector pit not have a vent in all my years of new home building.

 

[Rc_Guy]

On our new homes with ejector pits, the lid for the pit has 2 holes in it with grommets that seal to the pumped waste as well as a vent line. Ours also have a rubber gasket between the lid and the crock flange that is sealed via bolts. We also use clear silicone and apply a bead around the perimeter of the lid.

The unit in my house is like I just described.

I am not a plumber, but I have never seen an ejector pit not have a vent in all my years of new home building.

Our last house had an ejector pump not vented, sometimes it would air lock I believe and not pump so I put one of the cheater air admittance vents in and that took care of it. 18 years in that house and never did smell anything though and our bedroom was down there and the family room.

 

[welder4956]

Secondly I noticed that there wasn’t a Vent pipe coming out of the lid to feed the plumbing stack. I talked to my plumber today and he is coming tomorrow to address the issue, when I asked him about the vent, he said that it’s vented back thru the pit inlet. The pit does share a wall with the bathroom and the bathroom is on its own vent stack that exits the roof.

I’m not an expert on plumbing, I do know wet vents are used and accepted under code if certain restrictions are met.

Thoughts? Thanks in advance.

I'm not familiar with these pit/pump systems, but when the pump runs what keeps if from sucking the water out of the P-traps? Seems like it needs a dedicated vent to work properly.

 

[Hiball]

The plumbers came back yesterday and took everything apart, cleaned the threads up a little better so the lid could be tighter. The smell was definitely coming from the sump closet, not the p-traps in the bathroom.

Knock on Wood, So far so good..

 

[CraigStu]

I believe the pump is float activated so it stops pumping when the level gets down to far enough. The pit is never emptied out.

 

[Hiball]

I'm not familiar with these pit/pump systems, but when the pump runs what keeps if from sucking the water out of the P-traps? Seems like it needs a vent to work properly.

The way It was explained to me…

The 3” that feeds the pit from the bathroom fixtures is Vented thru the roof. It acts as a “wet vent” to control the air pressure of the pit when it fills/pumps.

 

[Hiball]

I believe the pump is float activated so it stops pumping when the level gets down to far enough. The pit is never emptied out.

Yeah, it’s set to keep the pump covered to keep it cool when running.

 

[flat350]

Probably did 2-3000 ejector pits in my career and never once did one without a 2" vent out of the cover and tied into the main vent system............

 

[Hiball]

Probably did 2-3000 ejector pits in my career and never once did one without a 2" vent out of the cover and tied into the main vent system............

Appreciate the Input, I talked to Zoeller about it yesterday. Everything in the system is there’s including the Pump/Basin and Lid. The explanation I got was depending what code I was operating under it’s either compliant or not. I was concerned when I started seeing that most systems vent gasses out the top, but then found some literature that depending on the distance from the Pit to the fixtures, drain sizing etc, it could very well be compliant as a wet vent system.

I guess I’ll see how things go with it, if I continue to have issues, I believe I could tie into the main bath stack for that lower bath pretty easily. Then again, some of the Newer codes claim it needs a dedicated Vent.. Who Knows? Definitely Not Me..