[Solved] Air blows from the toilet seat in the toilet. The effect after turning on the extractor fan at the n

Hello.

I live in a block of flats. For some time now, air has been blowing from the toilet in the bathroom - specifically, from the hole through which water from the tank flows into the toilet bowl. From my observations, I concluded that the effect is felt when the kitchen hood is turned on by a neighbor living below. Initially, there was supposed to be a shop next to me, but the plans changed and there is a private apartment there. Their kitchen is directly below my bathroom. We have separate ventilation shafts. Air is also released evenly from the water flush button (I marked the ventilation shafts in the photo). I have been "fighting" the problem since April 2018 with rather poor results, the cooperative will do its best (but does nothing), the guy downstairs won`t let anyone into the apartment. The problem also occurred with the neighbor above me with the same symptoms. The entire bathroom smells of cooked food and burning pets. How is it possible for odors to escape through these holes? I don`t know where to look for help anymore. Who to approach with the topic? Will a building inspector do anything?

Regards

Hello.

It looks as if the air from the hood was blown into the space behind the toilet frame, then entered the water tank, and then through the overflow of the drain valve into the toilet bowl. The space behind the building may be connected to a shaft through which sewage pipes, water pipes, etc. run. Therefore, the air from the hood must most likely go to this shaft, and from there to the flush tanks, etc.
The conclusion is that either the ventilation duct to which the neighbor connected the hood is leaky and is connected to a shaft with pipes, or the neighbor connected the hood directly to this shaft.

Regards.

There are two possibilities for air entry into the building through ventilation:
- or there is overpressure in the chimney, which forces air from the ventilation into the house...
- or there is negative pressure in the apartment, which sucks in air through all available channels.

To check which of the two occurs - open any window and see if there is still airflow from the toilet area.

The mystery is how the air gets behind the plaster wall (I bet there is an old ventilation grate somewhere behind the wall.....).

The apartment was bought new, I am the first owner. The plans I have show that the ventilation shafts are not designed for hoods, but for gravity ventilation (I think that`s what it`s called). That`s all I found on the Internet. Oh, and I remembered something else. On the left side of the visible chimney, there is an electrical socket (in the photo), from which there was also blowing, but I sealed it with some mass and it`s ok.

So it doesn`t have to be connected to the chimney I marked in the photo, right?

There is a turbo extractor installed on my chimney - something rotating.

Report it to the administration and have them call a chimney sweeper. There is no possibility for the chimney sweeper to refuse the visit, if they refuse, the matter should then be administratively initiated.

The rotating chimney cap supports draft. However, if it was installed on your ventilation duct and not on your neighbor`s, the effect will be the opposite. Due to the increase in negative pressure in your bathroom, fumes from your neighbor`s ventilation will be sucked in. The question is where the leak between the neighbor`s ventilation duct and your building comes from. And what do chimney sweepers say about all this during periodic inspections? In my case, when verifying the connections of individual premises and the heating devices installed in them, they used smoke matches, which immediately revealed irregularities. If they find any, they should issue a negative report and demand that the property manager remove the defects. In extreme cases, such a protocol may result in cutting off the gas supply (if any) to the building.
Did you already have this construction in your bathroom or did you do it yourself (with your own hands or with the hands of a specialist)?

Is there also a shaft with water pipes and sewage next to these ventilation chimneys? Maybe the neighbor went to the chimney and connected it to the pipe rack. Check if the administration has plans and the location of individual chimneys, taking into account that there was not supposed to be a kitchen downstairs, but a living room.
PS I wonder who allowed for such a modification that someone built a kitchen where others have a bathroom.

The last inspection looked like this: a guy from an external company came and put a fan on the ventilation grille and that was it. He wrote something down and wanted to leave. When asked why it rotates so slowly, the answer was that this is what happens in bathrooms. And that`s it. He just had to take a measurement and he did. He wasn`t very talkative. I didn`t pursue the issue with the cooperative and now I see that it was a mistake.


The construction was done by professionals on my recommendation. I visited them practically several times a day and watched how they were doing.
At first everything was fine. I`ve been living here for several years. It started less than a year ago when I wrote.

In general, getting something done in a cooperative is almost a miracle. This institution is one big concrete, only the president has the decision-making power and we depend on her whim when and what will be done or repaired.

The photo shows a floor plan of the apartment with the bathroom marked. You are better experts than me, maybe these chimney markings will tell you something more. I don`t know how the other pipes go. Perhaps next door, since there is a toilet planned there - I didn`t move any drains, everything is as built.

How many floors are there in total? What do I mean by your apartment is the ground floor, your first floor, your neighbor on the second floor and something else? From what I know, first of all, each room (which requires it) must now have an individual ventilation duct. From what we can see, with 2 ducts it is possible to connect ventilation to only two premises. This blowing from the electrical socket also proves that your specialists did not really know what they were doing because they had no right to drill a socket box in the ventilation duct. And what is actually under the buildings can only be guessed at. Do you have any inspection doors there? I can look through them? How are sewage lines run because it is not clear from these plans?

There is a ground floor and 3 floors, with the third floor being two-level. And I live as you write. There is no inspection door. They may have actually messed something up when installing the socket. I don`t have any other plans for the building. I will try to organize plans for the upper floors, maybe the neighbors have them.

In my opinion there are two possibilities:
1. The neighbor on the ground floor connected the kitchen hood not to the ventilation duct, but to, for example, a technical shaft intended for water and sewage installations
2. During the construction of your bathroom, the ventilation duct of the ground floor apartment was damaged, as a result of which the fumes find an outlet in your bathroom.
Perhaps the unpleasant situation is intensified by the chimney cowl on your ventilation duct, or perhaps your neighbor`s ventilation duct is partially/completely clogged and the air escapes through the smallest available gaps.
Either way, a local inspection by a reliable chimney sweeper is essential. Call several companies providing such services in your area and ask if they would try to find the source of the problem. With today`s technical aids, this shouldn`t be difficult.

Thanks everyone for any suggestions. I hope this will be under control soon.

Let`s hope it doesn`t turn out that when installing the toilet frame, your installers destroyed the wall of the neighbor`s chimney shaft. If you had the opportunity to check your neighbor`s chimney with an inspection camera to see if the shaft at the height of your apartment is damaged. Chimney sweepers have such cameras. Because you may look like a fool if you fight and it turns out that the problem was caused indirectly by you.

Well, I don`t know now. But why did the problem appear after a few years of living and not, for example, in the first or second year of living? Is this entire shaft located in the chimney along with the ventilation or, for example, in the wall behind the toilet? The wall you can see in the photos separates us from the staircase.

Added after 17 [minutes]:

edit -------
I understand that the shaft is the entire space where the ventilation and drainage pipes are located, right? So what I marked in red?

In the case of graphite ventilation, it is prohibited to install kitchen hoods in the kitchen. A person checking the air flow in a neighbor`s house, seeing a built-in kitchen hood connected to the ventilation duct, should draw up a report with a recommendation to liquidate the kitchen hood connected to the ventilation duct. The checking letter should be submitted to the appropriate unit in the cooperative. A neighbor can install a type of kitchen hood that does not require connection to the ventilation duct, and any odors in the hood are collected by a carbon filter.

kierbedz4 wrote:

In the case of graphite ventilation, it is prohibited to install cooker hoods in the kitchen

Not always. In our building, each apartment has a separate ventilation duct, so you can do anything.
In the case of the author of the post, the installation of the suspended toilet is definitely faulty, because its chamber (building) has a large leak with the shaft since there is airflow.

Maybe I expressed myself incorrectly because I meant the ventilation duct. Previously, there might not have been a problem because maybe the neighbor did not have a hood with forced ventilation in the past. As for the installation shaft, I rarely did it in blocks of flats, but I saw that it was always bricked up.

In the photo and project, the neighbor`s canal is right next to the frame, the hole theory is very likely.

The neighbor had this hood from the beginning (we have lived here for the same amount of time), there is no separate ventilation for mechanical exhaust fans. I know this because I also had the idea to connect it this way, but the chimney sweep from the cooperative didn`t allow it. I`m now waiting for the team, they will check the condition of the chimney during the week.

Has anything been clarified?

Unfortunately, I won`t be able to see the team yet. I`ll find out what`s going on tomorrow. Everything works like this here, the cooperative has time and is not in a hurry to work.

jac0205 wrote:

Unfortunately, I won`t be able to see the team yet. I`ll find out what`s going on tomorrow. Everything works like this here, the cooperative has time and is not in a hurry to work.

This is how it is in cooperatives https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gdXnltqbPg

After long struggles, something finally started. It turned out that the guy from downstairs had penetrated the pipe from the hood into the space where the toilet drain pipes are. The wall in the staircase was chiseled (several attempts) and so far it`s ok.