The kitchen is a dedicated space outfitted with fixtures and appliances for preparing good meals – but a foul smell emanating from a sink can kill a healthy appetite for food.
If your kitchen sink smells like rotten eggs, you must investigate the causes and apply the recommended solutions to fix the problem. A number of factors may be responsible for a smelly sink, and we shall examine these and proffer effective solutions in this guide.
Why Your Kitchen Sink Smells Like Rotten Eggs
Here are some of the causes of rotten eggs smell from your kitchen sink:
1. Buildup of decaying food particles
If you smell like sewage coming into your kitchen, it is possible that food debris washed into the drain of your sink is stuck and decaying. This will cause your kitchen sink to smell like rotten eggs and until the buildup of food particles is cleared out, you will not enjoy quality indoor air in your cooking enclosure.
2. Grease and fat deposits
Many of the grease and fat you washed away in your kitchen sink did not actually go away, they got stuck in the drain pipes where they emit a terrible sulfur smell. With this grease and fat solidified on the sides of your drain, it releases a rotten egg smell that chokes and nauseates the senses.
3. Leaking gas from sewer lines
You may have gas from underground sewer lines leaking into your home if your drain does not have water in it. Water in your drain pipe would keep the sewage gas from entering through your kitchen sink. But without water deposit, gases wafting into your kitchen through your sink will smell like rotten eggs. This is largely because gas from sewage pipes is escaping directly into your kitchen.
4. Contaminated water
You may not know this in time, but contaminated water may be your problem where kitchen smell is concerned. If you’re having water from the community tank pumped into your house, it may give off a rotten egg smell if contaminated.
Sometimes water from overhead tanks may also get polluted if they sit in the tank for several weeks. So you must test your water source for quality if you perceive terrible smells in your kitchen sink.
5. Clogs in drain pipes
Anything can clog your kitchen drain pipes to give off a rotten eggs smell. Imagine a rat getting stuck and dying in your drain; rats may get trapped in your drain because they were attracted by the smell of food emanating from the pipe, they wanted the warmth in the pipe, and they needed a hiding place to escape the winter.
6. Faulty plumbing
Faulty plumbing may lead to leaky faucets, running toilets, poor water pressure, and leaky water heater among others. All these can contribute to a terrible smell coming from your kitchen sink. But it may take the intervention of a skilled plumber or technician to detect and correct this problem.
Kitchen Sink Smells Like Rotten Eggs: How to Fix
Fixing the rotten eggs smell in your kitchen sink depends on the causes of the odor. There are a number of solutions that you can try yourself to fix the problem, and you can also invite a licensed technician to assist.
You can even solve the problem with ready materials you already have in your kitchen, and you may have to get creative depending on the identified cause.
Here then are some DIY hacks that work:
- Baking soda and distilled white vinegar
A mixture of baking soda and distilled white vinegar poured into the kitchen sink drain and washed down with hot water will almost certainly terminate the rotten eggs smell. This procedure will melt away grease and fat deposits in your drain and also cleanse decaying food particles stuck in the drain.
Apart from the fact that baking soda and vinegar clear food and grease deposits in drains, the combination also deodorizes the kitchen by destroying odors. Baking soda contains sodium bicarbonate and white vinegar contains acetic acid which both react in water to neutralize organic odor molecules.
- Chlorine bleach for hydrogen sulfide
The rotten eggs smell in your kitchen sink is actually hydrogen sulfide, and it is produced by the gas in the underground sewer. To deal with this sulfur stench, chlorine bleach would help. Apart from the fact that chlorine bleach eliminates bad odor by neutralizing hydrogen sulfide, it also disinfects contaminated water by reacting with iron or manganese.
- Kill off bacteria in your water source
Having established that contaminated water can be a source of rotten eggs smell in your kitchen, you may kill off the bacteria in your water source to destroy the offensive odors. You can do this by disinfecting your overhead water tank, heating up your water heater for several hours to kill the germs in it, and contacting your water utility company to disinfect the community water source.
- Fill your p-trap with water
If the water in your p-trap is dried up because you have not been using your kitchen sink for some time, it can cause gases from underground sewer lines to waft through the drain into the house. When you fill the p-trap with water, it will create a barrier between the smelly gases in the sewer and your kitchen.
- Hire a plumber to help
If you have tried most of the DIY solutions outlined in this guide with little to no results, it might be time to contact an accredited and licensed technician to help. A plumber will be able to correct the plumbing if it is the cause of the smelly kitchen sink, and he will also be able to repair or replace rusted water pipes if they make your water smell like sulfur.
The plumber will also fix the water heater if it is the cause of the hydrogen sulfide as well as other required interventions to fix the offensive rotten egg smell. Once you apply all these solutions to your kitchen sink odor problem, you will enjoy quality indoor air in your food-preparation department again and your family will be able to enjoy good food without nauseating kitchen smells.
