Urinal Odours - Causes and Solutions - Gentworks Urinals, Stainless Steel Toilets, Drinking Fountains and Sanitaryware

The causes of odours are usually easy to rectify, but can take some time to identify. The first step should be to find the source of the odour and make sure it really is related to the urinals in the washroom that has the odour problem. In large buildings with voids connecting several floors, odours generated behind the panels in one washroom may only become apparent on another floor. Gentworks engineers have spent up to 5 hours tracing an odour problem to its true source, although this is a very rare occurrence.

1.1 Poor Cleaning
The key reason that most urinals are not smelly is that the cleaners are using appropriate cleaning chemicals and doing their job properly. Key signs of inadequate cleaning are brown staining underneath the urinal bowl, especially around the traps, and stains on the surrounds at the back of and underneath the urinals. Some chaps are not very good shots. It would be best to use a microbiological cleaning fluid and make sure the cleaners have the time, training and diligence to do a good job.

1.2 Inadequate flushing
If the urinals don't have devices fitted to operate without water, make sure you are using enough water at the right times. PIR sensor flush controllers are ideal for this purpose. We recommend that these are set to actuate a flush within 20 minutes of a urinal being used and every 12 hours when they have not been used. The reason for the latter, often referred to as a "janitorial" or "hygiene" flush, is to make sure there is always enough water in the traps to preserve the water seal. If you already have a flush controller, make sure it is working and calibrated to provide sufficient flushing.

Every urinal has to be receiving enough flush water. Our engineers often come across problems when banks of 4 or 5 urinals being flushed off one cistern. The end urinals don't receive enough water if the horizontal sparge pipes are not truly horizontal or are scaled up. Even in banks of 2 urinals, debris in the downpipe and sparges can prevent adequate flush volume reaching both urinals. We frequently find in new builds or major refurbishments, that the cistern contains a lot of building dust and debris that inevitably finds its way into the water supply pipes and causes flushing problems. The holes in the spreaders delivering water into the urinal bowls can also become blocked with debris and scale.

1.3 Waste pipes venting to the washroom
If the washroom with urinals really stinks, you may have a broken pipe (copper ones often split with age and treatment with acids). If a problem occurs within a few days of a drain maintenance crew rodding through the urinal wastes, then they may have broken a seal on a pipe inadvertently. This does happen from time to time and, whilst the company responsible should put it right, it doesn't necessarily mean they were negligent. Sometimes, the problem may not become apparent until after they have left site, even though they checked the pipes thoroughly before departing.