One of the significant components in every household is drainage. Especially, kitchen sink drainages are very crucial as they tend to clog easily if they aren’t designed properly.
But even without any clogging, our kitchen sinks might smell like a sewer line. You might wonder whether the kitchen sinks drain into the sewer line and cause this smell.
In this article, we shall understand how kitchen sinks are drained and the possible causes for the bad smell. Also, we shall discuss the ways to get rid of the sewer smell from your sink.
Does Kitchen Sink Drain to Sewer Line?
Kitchen sinks drain into the sewer line through a pipe that runs beneath the house and joins the main line that runs below the street. In some parts, there will not be a sewer line and the wastewater from your kitchen sink is drained into a septic tank system. Either way, the kitchen sinks drain into a waste line.
Every drain in our household eventually joins the main sewer line. When you construct the house, plumbers design the drainage in such a way that all of them are drained into the sewer line. This sewer line connects to another major line that flows to the wastewater treatment plant in your area. This is how your kitchen sink is connected to the sewer line.
Let us now explore the complete anatomy of the kitchen sink plumbing so that you can understand this in detail. Also, you can fix any issues with it in the future if you know how it is fixed.
Kitchen Drain Plumbing Design
If you look at the anatomy of the kitchen sink and its drainage you can find the following components:
- A strainer and strainer body inside the sink that sits in the center
- A P-Trap which is the bent pipe beneath the sink
- A garbage disposal system (optional but recommended)
These are the major components that make up the kitchen sink drainage. Each of these work in the following way to promote the drainage of wastewater from the kitchen sink:
- The strainer traps the large food particles and leftovers from getting down the drain line. The strainer is divided into two parts. The part that is visible to you is the strainer net. The other part is the strainer body where other smaller particles settle down.
- Then the wastewater moves down to the P-trap which is one of the most important components.
- The P-trap is designed to retain some water in the bent part which traps the gas from the sewer from rising to the sink.
- When water flows further into this P-trap, it naturally moves into the drain line which then connects to the sewer line.
- Additionally, you can add a garbage disposal system that is connected nearby the drain system. This garbage disposal helps in grinding the food particles into tiny pieces which can flow through the drain line without any clogging.
- It is better to use this system because you don’t have to collect the solid waste separately.
This is how the drainage of the kitchen sink works and the plumbing has these components that aid proper drainage.
Can this Connection to the Sewer Line Cause a Bad Smell?
If your P-trap is empty, then there is a good chance that your sink will smell like a sewer. We understood that the kitchen sink drains into a sewer line. We shall now discuss the function of P-Trap in detail so that you can understand why your kitchen sink smells like sewer.
Function of P-Trap
If you look at the P-Trap, it will have a bent structure like a J. In this bent area, some wastewater will be always present. If you look at the exit pipe of the drain line, it will be higher than this curved area.
So, when the wastewater enters the P-trap, some of it stays in the bent part, and if the water flow continues, it will overflow from the curved area. But once the flow is stopped, the water in the curved part will retain.
The sewer line will have gas formation since it contains all the wastes from the neighborhood and they start to decompose inside it. This decomposition will produce several gases. Although these gases are vented, the amount of gas present in the line is of high volume.
The gases will always flow towards areas of low pressure and try to escape through them. So, a kitchen drain line connected to the sewer paves the path for these gases to flow.
This is where P-Trap comes in for protection. The water retaining in the bent part will not allow the gases from the sewer line to rise to the sink. So, until your P-trap has water in it, the gases will never rise to your sink.
How to avoid a sewer smelling sink?
We now understood that the P-trap prevents the sewer gases with the help of the water retained in the curved area. This means that you have to use the sink regularly so that the water is retained in it.
If you get the smell even after regular usage, then there is a leak in your P-Trap. When the trap becomes empty, the gases will find their way up to the sink. So, you have to fix the trap immediately.
If you have a sink that is left unused for a few days, the water in the trap will slowly dry out and paves way for the gas flow. Therefore, don’t let your sinks untouched. Even if they are not required, occasionally pour some water into the sink.
Along with this, try to vent your drain line and the sewer line connecting to your house properly. If you properly vent them, the gases will escape through them and the pressure will be reduced considerably.
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Conclusion
Kitchen sinks and other sinks in your household connect to the sewer line eventually. So, you need to design your plumbing properly to avoid drainage issues. If your kitchen sink has any drainage issues or if it smells like sewer, you need to check the sink drainage system and fix the issue immediately.
