Home Inspector about the house

Is there a silent thief in your basement?

Fig.1

This silent or close to silent thief is the “automatic trap seal primer”. This device is installed to prevent sewer gases from entering the house via the floor drain in the basement. (See fig.1 new trap seal primer) Automatic trap seal primers were added to the building code around 1980 (thanks to Eric H., Rudy S. at the City of Abbotsford and Garry at Murphy Wakefield Ltd.). What can happen is that the water in the trap dries up allowing the sewer gases to enter the house. The automatic trap seal primer diverts some water to the trap to keep it from drying out.

This device is usually made of brass. The first devices were a ‘continuous flow’ design. (See picture at left) When water was being used in the house, some would be diverted to the trap to keep it from drying out. The problem is - when the device fails, water is running continuously.



In most cities today, water usage is metered by the city and you pay for the amount used on your yearly property tax. For example, after receiving this years property tax notice, I discovered that our family had used 220 m3 which seemed high, so I looked at the trap prime sealer and found water to be flowing constantly. I had a friend check his property tax bill and he had used 69 m3. We have 4 in our household and he is single so I still figure that we had probably wasted about 100 m3. This problem occurred a couple of years ago and I replaced the small neoprene rubber poppet float in the device. The device cost $40.00 as I had to buy a whole unit to get a new poppet. There is a trick used by some plumbers which stops the water from flowing to the floor drain trap which was implemented. Water is manually added to the floor drain to prevent the trap from drying out.

As water rates in Abbotsford for 2011 will be increased, from $0.94m3 to $1.02m3 for residential users, it would be wise to find ways of reducing your water usage and check your trap sealer. To check, you just look into the holes located on the lower part of the device to see if water is flowing. (See picture above)

In our home, we will be replacing the device with newer technology that uses much less water. (You will hear more about this in an upcoming blog).

It is also worth upgrading your toilets to a dual flush system, if you own an older home. A new dual flush toilet runs anywhere from $160 -$400. Check this website for future information on a low cost upgrade to the toilet to reduce water usage without replacing the complete toilet.