A sewer smell nobody could pin down, a tired hose bib and a hall-bath toilet due for retirement, handled in one August visit on Lynnwood’s west side
Location: West Lynnwood, WA
Service: Toilet replacement, hose bib replacement, sewer-gas smoke test
Technicians: Logan & Willie
In August 2026 a homeowner on the west side of Lynnwood called with three things on the list: an intermittent sewer smell in the master bathroom that nobody could trace, a tired cold-water hose bib on the side of the house, and a hall-bath toilet that was due for replacement. Logan and Willie handled all three in one morning.
What We Did
The smell came first, because it was the mystery. Logan ran a sixty-second smoke test with the homeowner inside the house and got no smoke and no smell anywhere, then a second from the crawl space with the same result. While he was under the house he traced every drain: each fixture had its own vent, properly done, so nothing could siphon a trap dry. The washing machine had come up as a suspect, but its drain is on its own line vented straight through the roof. With no leak to find, Logan asked the homeowner to note exactly when the smell appears rather than sell a repair for a fault the smoke could not find.
The old cold-water hose bib was replaced next, in its existing penetration, with the connection made from the crawl space rather than through the siding, and the water turned on to check every joint.
The old hall-bath toilet then came out and a new Toto one-piece went in, a 1.28-gallon-per-flush fixture with the tank and bowl cast as one. Logan had it flushed from above while he was still under the house watching the drain connection, then checked function and the base from the bathroom.
Why It Matters
- A smoke test that finds nothing is still an answer. Smoke in the drain system shows at any open joint, cracked pipe or dry trap, so two clean tests rule out the plumbing you cannot see and narrow the search to what you can.
- One-piece toilets have fewer places to leak. With the tank and bowl cast together there is no tank-to-bowl gasket to fail, and the smooth exterior is easier to keep clean.
- Test from below when you can. Flushing a newly set toilet while a plumber watches the drain from the crawl space catches a bad seal on the first day, not after the ceiling stains.
Why West Lynnwood
The plats on Lynnwood’s west side, between Highway 99 and the Edmonds line, went up largely in the 1960s and 1970s on crawl spaces, which made this visit efficient: the hose bib, the venting and the toilet’s drain were all reachable from underneath. Our shop in Old Town Mukilteo is about fifteen minutes away.
A toilet due for replacement, or a smell you cannot trace? Call and tell us what you are seeing and when. Related: toilet repair and replacement · plumbing in Lynnwood · a toilet repair after tile work in Lynnwood · toilet repair in Mukilteo · hose bib repair and installation