Now the second floor bathrooms are gateways to Heck

[depechemodefan]

From our blog:

Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Help! I'm being gassed to death
The problem with the sewage flumes coming out of the unused bathrooms is a health hazard. We can't possibly ask a patrons to hold their breath while using the CORE computers or resource material.

I reported it to M**** at around 2pm today.

September 9, 2008 12:41 PM

This situation was reported on Sept 3. A*** is floowing up on it today to check on the situation. thanks L W

September 9, 2008 12:43 PM

Several people have told me the smell is from the water having been evaporated from the unused toilets, allowing the sewage and methane fumes to escape. Most of the signs are pointing to dry plumbing traps being the cause of the smell.

September 10, 2008 7:31 AM

Oh, and a link about about the health effects and dangers of the sewage gasses:

http://dhs.wisconsin.gov/eh/Air/fs/SewerGas.htm

September 10, 2008 7:34 AM

This has been reported repeatedly. It appears that the cause of the odor has not yet been identified. Has anyone seen folks working on this?

Thanks,
M C

September 11, 2008 7:39 AM

This is from another one of the library's blogs, because we are efficient

Bad Smell on 2

There is a really bad sewer smell in the CORE area of the 2nd floor. It seems like it may be coming out of the old closed off staff bathrooms.. It has been reported. L W

Yeah, I've noticed the smell for the past 3 weeks. I would think it was an open sewer. J P

[Aethian]

My goodness. Maybe it's the library itself.

[Yfandes]

We used to get that. Flushing all the toliets and running the sinks and showers (to fill the traps), and putting dilute bleach water in the floor drains traps solved it. But ya - stinky!!

[ArcticChicken]

Let's face it, you're just going to have to go somewhere else to use the bathroom, the bathrooms there are not worth the risk.

[Bootlegger]

If its the traps then the simple solution would be to run water through them and ventilate the area. But that usually only happens in areas that go for long periods without use. Or their might be a blockage in the system that keeps the excess gasses from venting out through the pipes to the roof(ever wonder what those pipes sticking out of the roof are? now you know) and thus causing the gasses to be forced out throughother toilets,sinks and floor drains.

[depechemodefan]

I have third hand info. that the fire dept. has to be involved now.

I forgot to mention, these bathrooms on the second floor were the staff bathrooms before the renovations. There are still public bathrooms that are operating. Anyway, they closed off the employee bathrooms because they are not ADA compliant. I don't know why they didn't fix them to make them compliant. No one has been using them for almost 2 years, since they closed the building in April 2006 (they probably were still in use for some months after, until the construction crew closed them).