Are you talking about at home that you live in? Or a vacation home that will sit unoccupied for many months at a time?

Yes, you want to make sure traps don't dry out.

I have one tub in one bath, and one shower in another that are only used occasionally. Once a month or so when cleaning, I turn on the hand spray and rinse the dust from them. Also serves to makes sure the P trap has water in it.

The 'water' I rarely think to address is a deep utility sink in a cabinet in my basement. Porcelain, very pretty and original to the 1955 house. The only things of interest in that basement are Christmas decorations, some things a divorcing friend is storing, and my SILs patio furniture in winter along with mine.

I don't know why I've never had an odor or problem from that basement sink but I haven't. We've been here 7 years.

HU-527....This is home we live in but have slightly more bathrooms than we need.

I have guest bedroom too that we do need for when family come but also not used much. I clean it weekly though and thus water is open when cleaning it so as long as you are going in at least weekly it should be okay.

Every 6 months, the shut off valves for all of your fixtures should be cycled of and on. The faucets should get the same exercise. On and off a few times. The traps on unused fixtures should have that water poured down them, followed by a 1/2 teaspoon of plain Mineral oil. That’s floor drains, shower drains, sink drains, whatever.

Alternative is to pour a little vegetable oil down each drain. The oil will float on top of the water, slowing evaporation. Very common in vacation homes.

So the answer seems to be no, the O rings and gaskets will be fine. It is sewer gasses one could have issues with. But if you do--quick fix, pour water!!!

Make sure that your toilets' supply line is made of braided stainless steel and not flexible PVC hose. We had a PVC line burst one night. Fortunately we were home and heard it. Our plumber said they're only good for about 10 years before they start to fail.

The only issue I have had is sewer gasses from the guest shower that is never used. Periodically I just turn the shower on when I detect an odor.

The toilet gets flushed because the guest bath is cleaned and the toilet is used infrequently.

Before my remodel I used the guest shower for storage :-) so I never turned the water on. I needed to clear it out in anticipation of surgery when I wouldn't be able to navigate into the tub/shower. It hadn't been used for many years so I was nervous but it turned on and then off with no issues. Ironically it was the shower valve in the master bath that was used that became impossible to shut off and had to be replaced.

We had a problem with the shower in 2nd bathroom of our Florida home - that is not used unless we have guests stay. Would only have cold water, no hot. After fixing the problem, Fix for that was to occasionally run the shower - on hot now and again.

All the other fixtures worked fine, even tho they were left unused for months and months at a time.

Flush the toilet once a week and run water in the shower or tub at the same time.

It sounds like this is an existing house; however, if you are building a new house you could try installing traps with a trap-primer connection.

The trap primer valve is installed in a water supply line that is used relatively frequently. Whenever there is a pressure drop in that supply line (the faucet is turned on) the primer will run a small amount of water down its primer line that is connected to the trap. Basically, it is dribbling a small amount of water into the trap each time you run water through the supply line. This is a video of how it works. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pU3SgBqA0MM YMMV.

Bruce

Thanks. House is already built...we missed this info. by a year but good to know for the next house we build with 5 bathrooms and utility sinks and bars. Or maybe we'll build a 1 bedroom/1 bath...would be simpler, ha ha.