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x-ray or ultrasound a wall

B

b79holmes

Member
At first I thought this was a somewhat crazy idea but if anyone knows the answer, someone here will.

We have a low level dead animal smell in a wall. I have pulled insulation down from the cellar ceiling and pulled off a baseboard to drill holes in each wall cavity, but no luck.

Just spoke to an experienced carpenter I know who basically said 'good luck with that'. Impossible to identify where the smell is coming from without opening up the walls. The smell moves thru wire and pipe holes etc. Basically a nightmare. Yes I know that.

Before I just found the "DeWalt Hand Held Wall Scanner DCT419S1" I thought to myself.

What about a veterinary portable x-ray or ultrasound machine? Would either see thru drywall and show a possible small animal corpse?

Any vet's or vet tech's here? What do you think? Would it be dangerous?
Equine lameness specialists all now use computer based x-ray's and ultrasound machines so at least there are no film costs.
I'd pay $500 tomorrow to identify exactly what and exactly where it is in my wall.

Bill
PS, no I don't think the Dewalt scanner would work but they should investigate adding this feature.
 
There are Wallabot ads all over Youtube, that do what you describe. Works with certain smart phones.
 
You might be better off buying a $40 inspection camera and drilling a few small holes.

I'm not familiar with that Dewalt tool you mentioned, but not sure it would be sensitive enough to pick up what may well be the remains of a dead mouse. I've also had a mess of Asian ladybug beetles that collected here one winter. Started stinking in the Spring and took forever to find the mass of them. I doubt seriously ANY kind of portable x-ray device would have picked them up.

Definitely need to find out where the stink is coming from, then figure out how it got in and seal that up.

Check out this link for some inspection cameras:
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias=aps&field-keywords=inspection+camera
 

We had a smell every year in December when we used to use mouse bait. I think that the skeletons are under the bathroom vanity. I use traps now. Last winter I caught nearly 40.
 
Do you use propane, I was working on a house this past summer it had the same smell & it was a propane leak.
 
(quoted from post at 19:17:07 11/07/18)
We had a smell every year in December when we used to use mouse bait. I think that the skeletons are under the bathroom vanity. I use traps now. Last winter I caught nearly 40.
Click to expand...

Yes I had a professional leave baits 15 years ago and I think there are still some somewhere and we get this yearly. I set traps in the attic. You'd think the baits would be used up by now.

I suppose it could be some other animal.
 
(quoted from post at 19:08:34 11/07/18) There are Wallabot ads all over Youtube, that do what you describe. Works with certain smart phones.
Click to expand...

The Dewalt tool is similar but will it see dead animals, insect nests, etc.?
 
Hello b79holmes,

How about one of these, assuming you have a iphone

Guido.
cvphoto1975.jpg
 
I fought with that problem for a long time in our utility room were our washer, dryer, furnace etc were located. It was an annual smell, normally in the fall. The washer drain was plumbed in in the side of an
upright pvc pipe that extended up above where the drain tied in to allow for venting. It was tall enough it reached near the ceiling. One time when I was down there once again trying to figure out where the
dead animal smell was coming from, I looked up at the top of that pipe, and realized it was possible for a mouse to climb down into it from a ceiling joist. I dumped a little bleach in it, and covered the
top of the pipe with some window screen held in place with a large hose clamp. We have not had the problem since, and that was several years ago.
 
(quoted from post at 19:54:34 11/07/18) Maybe a dog?
Click to expand...

I said this to my carpenter friend but because these smells can drift from wall cavity to cavity via the holes drilled for wiring and pipes it may not be at the cavity a dog would 'point' to.

He had some experts come to a school and after ripping a lot of walls open the source was many feet from the spot identified, but they didn't use a dog.


(quoted from post at 20:20:38 11/07/18) I fought with that problem for a long time in our utility room were our washer, dryer, furnace etc were located. It was an annual smell, normally in the fall. The washer drain was plumbed in in the side of an
upright pvc pipe that extended up above where the drain tied in to allow for venting. It was tall enough it reached near the ceiling. One time when I was down there once again trying to figure out where the
dead animal smell was coming from, I looked up at the top of that pipe, and realized it was possible for a mouse to climb down into it from a ceiling joist. I dumped a little bleach in it, and covered the
top of the pipe with some window screen held in place with a large hose clamp. We have not had the problem since, and that was several years ago.
Click to expand...

The room where the smell always starts and slowly ends in, after about 13 days from is an office with no utilities.

I think I will try checking basement ceiling insulation in the other direction from my last attempt. I could not drill holes behind the baseboard as there are stairs on the other side of that wall so there must be horizontal 2x4's double or triple high there and I wasn't ready to drill holes where I must patch and repaint.
 
If it stinks for 13 days, it must be bigger than a mouse. Even a good size rat will dry up fairly quickly.

I would try looking closely for any entry point that a larger animal could pass through. If its a rat or possum they will leave a dark grease mark where they come and go.
 
X-rays? No, because X-rays image by passing their transmissions THROUGH the object being imaged, meaning you need access to both sides of the object.

I think that wall scanner works by sensing the capacitance of the wall; I don't know if that's going to help you find an animal corpse. Your best bet is to drill holes in the wall and use a borescope.
 
Correct, the plate is on one side of the joint and the xray machine on the other side. Even if it would work the cost would be incredible. Cost to xray a horses leg is $350. The digital xray machine is about $100,000. One of my critters kicked the plate and I thought the vet was going to have a heart attack.
 

There are gas sensitive ' sniffer ' devices that can be attuned to the methane emanating from a decomposing corpse . A specialist would be able to narrow down a specific area in a short time , pest control companies and those specialising in post mortem cleaning should have this equipment .
Forget X Rays , even ground penetrating radar will have a hard time discriminating through a wall of mixed building material .
Is there a way of allowing access to the top of the wall ? Allowing blowflies in [ don't know if they are called anything else in the U.S. ]
will let them clean any remains up very quickly , a simple cheap and natural solution .
 
I've always heard a month for the decomposition smell to dissipate. I know it stinks but it does go away, and is much less expensive and intrusive and work-intensive than the alternative, which is to tear open the walls looking for the god-forsaken thing.

Have you looked into the Walabot? It's a wall scanner you attach to your smartphone or tablet, which will show you whatever's inside the wall.
 
Not sure if it would work for finding a dead animal, but the place I retired from had a thermal camera that could show things inside walls. The maintenance guys used it to see where, or if, wires and pipes were inside the walls. Minimized the "surprises" when working. It also was great to spot bad connections or components inside electric panels and boxes.
 
b79holmes - Get yourself one of those inexpensive Digital Inspection Cameras from Harbor Freight. Drill a half inch hole between the studs
and low on the wall, insert the flexible probe through the hole and check the spaces between the studs (theres a tiny light in the end of the
probe by the camera lens). - Half inch holes are a lot easier to patch up with Spackle, than replacing panels of wall-board.

Harbor Freight - Catalog # 8898-B6
Centech brand - 2.4" LCD Digital Inspection Camera - Item numbers 61839 / 62359 - $59.99 - Super Coupon # 47836135 , valid through 12/31/18 .
 
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