I have a sewer gas smell coming from the washing machine help please?

It's NOT the septic tank.

It's a vent problem.

With a standard septic tank / leach bed, the tank is a filter of sorts. The light weight stuff, scum, floats to the top of the water, the heavy stuff, sludge, sinks to bottom. The relatively clean water goes out to the leach bed, to be filtered / cleaned by Mother Nature. The water level is right at the leach bed outlet pipe. A tee fitting is used to prevent the scum from floating out to the leach bed. Septic tanks need to pumped, to remove the sludge, BEFORE the sludge gets so deep, the it too, flows out to the leach bed. The leach bed with plug up from this. Pumping a tank will NOT get rid of sewer smells ( as soon as you put some "stuff" into the tank, the smell will come back).

Either you have a dried out trap or you have a plugged vent pipe.

Traps are used to keep smells in the piping. Vents are used to, well, vent the gas. Vents also prevent the rush of water draining, from sucking out the water, out of the traps.

An air admittance valve (a pseudo vent) lets air in, but not back out. Air admittance valves use a rubber diaphragm/ spring, if it breaks or gets stuck open, you could get gas back inside.

Birds sometimes build nests in the roof vent pipe, causing a plug.

and, finally, it you as sure it's the washing machine, it may not be completely draining, causing it to hold water & causing the smell. Also the washer hose drain hose should have an air gap, at the plumbing drain, to allow air to suck into drain, preventing a vent issue.

Someone said, " smell methane". Look at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane

"methane is a colorless, odorless gas; the smell characteristic of natural gas as used in homes is an artificial safety measure caused by the addition of an odorant, often methanethiol or ethanethiol"

Methane in sewer gas does NOT have an ordor!

Also, look up "gas leak detector" on the internet. Unless someone can take one & show you a specific source, they can be annoying, buzz boxes, (they can go off on WAY too much stuff)

Duct tape, scotch tape, rubber tape, electrical tape, double sided tape, friction tape, audio tape, all have their uses........none of which are on PLUMBING!

It depends on what type of gas you are smelling. Since there is a furnace, heater, and I assume gas dryer, call the gas company! They have a hand held gas detector that will pick up any natural gas leaking into your house. It could be as simple as a pilot light that has gone out. It would only leak a little bit of gas, but it would still be HIGHLY flammable. Did the furnace repair man check the heater and dryer? Call the gas co. Its a free service they have and they respond with in half an hour in most cases, especially emergencies. If its a sewer gas, that's a lot more difficult to pin point where the problem is. The washing machine has a drain line that comes out the back and will go up the wall into a drain pipe in the wall. It is usually secured to the wall with duct tape. The drain line from the machine will usually sit inside the drain pipe in the wall about a foot to foot and a half. If you pull that line out of the pipe and the smell is coming from there, it is methane coming up from the sewer...however this possibility is remote. Drain lines have a "P" trap in them that holds water to prevent sewer gases from coming back inside. The gases can be quite toxic in some cases.

When you say you had the pipes redone, which pipes? Water lines, gas lines, drain lines? If it was copper pipe install, that would not cause the smell. Those are only water supply lines for your house.

Your situation brings up more questions than is possible to simply answer without further explanation. Please look into it further and start with a call to the gas company. Number is 800-427-2200.

if you have a P-trap there would be no sewer gas smell. If you can access where the pipe goes into your basement (if you have one) you may be able to see up into the wall from underneath to verify if there is a trap on the line. As a temporary fix, when the washing machine is not in use, remove the hose and stuff a rag into the drain hole. Make sure it is long enough that you don't push it into the drain where you can't get it out again. If you can live with a small hole in your wall behind the washing machine, cut a hole there and see if there is a trap. You can also get a pre-mde plastic access hole cover at most Home Improvement stores. You cut a hole in the wall to install it.

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RE:

I have a sewer gas smell coming from the washing machine help please?

Over the last 2 months I have noticed a gas smell in my hallway where the water heater, furnace, dryer, and washing machine are located. Its not that strong and I don't smell it all the time. So today I had the furnace repair man out to see if we had a gas leak because it smelled like propane....

The trap may be drying out letting sewer gas pass through if you haven't used the washer for a while. I would try running it through a small rinse and see if that solves the problem. I use to have that problem in my laundry room if I had not used the laundry sink or done laundry for a while. The trap is meant to hold some water to keep sewer gas from coming back into the house but if it dries out this can happen.

Sounds like your sink trap my need cleaned.To locate this you need to look under the sink and find the waste pipe that your washing machine is plumed to .Once you find the washing machine waste pipe directly below this there should be a U shaped fitting this is the trap you my need to clean.

On both ends of the trap or large threaded couplings you need to unscrew these pop out the trap and give it a clean,then reverse the process to replace . Hope this works for you.

Pseudovent

Having the septic tank pumped sounds like a reasonable solution to me.

Have a plumber check it out.

try pouring baking soda down pipe