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toilet not flushing properly

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R

Rich Iowa

Member
I'm renting a house that has a toilet that is having some flushing problems. The house belongs to a friend who redid the bathroom when he still lived here. When I flush, the reservoir empties as it should into the bowl with what seems to be adequate force to flush away the waste. Problem is most of the time, most of the waste is not flushed down, and the bowl fills up to the rim. It has never overflowed but it gets close. After the cycle is complete you can hear some water slowly draining and the water level slowly goes down but waste remains. My friend did say there are some tree roots that have plugged up the line in the past but he hasn't cleaned them out in couple years, but I'm not sure that's the main issue.

I'm thinking this is a vent issue so I went down to the cellar to look at the plumbing. The picture shows the vent he had to install when he redid the bathroom. The 3" pvc in the background is the drain for the toilet. The 1 1/2" pvc coming from the left is the drain for the sink, which is where the vent is placed (top of the picture). I'm thinking this setup is the problem with the toilet. Anybody have some ideas I could try that may fix this problem, short of rebuilding the plumbing with a proper vent out the roof which can't be done in this particular location? Is it possible to vent straight out the side of the house, just above the sill plate?
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I think if it was roots in the main line you would also be having problems elsewhere. It sounds like there is something stuck in the toilets trap that prevents it from flushing properly. If it were me I"d either snake it or remove the toilet amd check to male sure the line inside the toilet is not partialy blocked. You may find a kids toy or something inside the toilet"s trap.
 
My guess is tree roots. A toilet, does not need a vent, but dumps a lot of water, quickly. Sinks dump water slower, and the pipe holds the volume, letting it drain slow without it showing.
Dennis
 
you can get a "ventless" vent from home depot. its a vent that has sort of a check valve in it that prevents sewer gas from coming out, but lets the line pull in air for a vent. you can tee it right in to the 1-1/2 pcv pipe. it is made by oatey and runs about 20 dollars. here is a link
poke here
 
Did he have problems after the install? Or are they just starting now ? As suggested, get a snake and check the toilet itself.
 
I have a toilet that does the same thing. If yours has the jet flush in the trap, try holding the lever down longer (until the bowel clears). You should also check to make sure the lever lifts the flapper all the way.
 
Is it possible to screw the vent off, have someone flush and look down in the pipe to see if water is backing up into the vent line. That way you could eliminate if you have a blocked toilet or partial blockage down stream of the vent tube. But definetly something is cutting off flow
 
I've been sitting on toilets for nearly sixty years, but that doesn't make me a plumber. That said, do you have a spirit level? If so place it on that horizonal 1 1/2" vent line and see if its got 1/4" pitch per foot. If not, it might be holding water there, blocking the vent, or building sludge there. Also, does that system vent into the basement??
Best Regards,
Charlie
 
plugged sewer. When you flush do you hear gurgling in sink or tub if so plugged sewer if they are on same line. possible something in toilet, but sounds like sewer. Had same problem with 4 cust. past two weeks.
 
From your picture it looks like the pipe from toilet has been necked down. All my toilets come off with a pipe as big as the one along the wall in your picture.I have toilet in basement that uses that smaller pipe but it has a sewage pump that busts everything up before it pumps it out.
 
Or a sixteen year old grandson that has impossible things coming out of his body and apparently turning into concrete. ( I busted the toilet apart, no kidding.LOL)
 
In the toilet trap or the sewer line going out. forget the vent. Have a sink full of water & As soon as you flush, pull drain on sink & see if it is now reluctant to drain too. Have you used a plunger on the toilet?
 
You could have a build up of lime in the toilet trap.Its a gray rough deposit.Next there can be a build up of crud at the floor flange.I would take the toilet out doors and check for junk in the trap.You need a new wax gasket.The rear pipe looks like 4 inch to me;Roots in the pipe can be cleared with copper sulfate if they are small.
 
Rich there is nothing wrong with the vent, as everyone said pull the toilet and ck for a plug, while it is off run the snake down the drain pipe.
 
Had the same problem once. The "improved" wax seal had a big plastic funnel molded into it. The plastic was warped.
 
Thanks everyone for the help. Called my friend and he said after he cleared out the tree roots a couple years ago, the toilet worked great. But since then he had some bad renters so who knows what they may have tried to put down the toilet. I do occassionally hear gurgling from the tub or kitchen sink. The sinks, tub, and washing machine all drain perfectly fine. In the morning we are going to run a snake down the pipe, remove the roots, and I believe he said he used some stuff last time that helped slow the tree roots (perhaps the same stuff someone else suggested). See how much of an improvement that makes. If that doesn't do the trick, we'll pull the toilet and see if something is stuck in the trap.
 
A small perfume bottle, or make-up container in the toilet trap will make it act exactly like that. Pull the stool and check it out. (don't ask how I know)
 
Just judging from your picture, it looks like your drain pipes are running slightly uphill before turning down. This will hold enough water to give the same type of problem. I'm no plumber but I did spend a night or two in the sewer.
 
Recently I seemed to fix the toilets for a couple ladies, thus, they even baked me a cake for my trouble.

Most toilets have a small hole in the vicinity of the trap in the bottom that everything is supposed to go down. For years, theirs wouldn;t flush completely the first flushing.

Normal problem is the small vent hole is clogged after years of servce. By reaming the hole and removing scale etc. from the water.....instant gratification.

Some of the newer toilets do not have the vent hole. Then I would suspect sewer drain problems HTH John,PA
 

I would have to vote with those who suggested the problem is within the toilet. When I bought my first house I fought the toilet in the main bathroom for almost a year. It basically worked but not always and usually it wanted to over fill as per your discription. I checked the toilet several times and found nothing. One day I decided I would check it one last time before pulling it. Working with a coat hanger, I finally found a cotex. No more problems after that.
 
I think that one way vent has to be higher than anything being drained. I see them installed near the top of stud cavities with vent grille in front of them.

We have had flushing problems developing over the past few years and am pretty convinced it is liming of the rim outlets over the years with our hard water in Indiana.

We have just intalled two Kohler "bold power" toilets from Lowes for abbot $ 150 each. They work great. They have a jet in the bottom of the bowl and a really strange looking flush mechanism in the tank. I"ve been warning people to stand up before they flush or risk getting sucked in. They also use a small amount of water.
 
You're not seeing it correctly. The toilet (sewer) line IS the big line along the wall. What you see in front is the vent line which joins the sewer line at the Tee below the long 90. The vertical stub goes up to a "ventless" vent as glennster noted below. You're seeing all of that apparatus---it doesn't go through the floor. The toilet connection is out of the picture to the left.

Stan
 
Hi Rich,

Following thirty years of remodeling houses (usually by myself), I took a job for a few years as a maintenance supervisor at a large apartment complex. I got about as much experience with toilet problems as I could stand.

I'd say you've got a blockage in the gooseneck of the toilet bowl. People below have already suggested ways to check for this. The easiest is simply to give the sewer line plenty of time to drain---don't flush the toilet or drain the tub or a sink for ten or fifteen minutes. Then flush the toilet. Unless you've got roots growing all the way up to the floor under the toilet, there should be enough capacity in the amount of line showing in your photo for all the water of a single flush to get out of the toilet. If it doesn't, it strongly suggests that the blockage is in the toilet itself.

The tool you want to start with in not a snake, but a toilet auger. This will go all the way through the gooseneck of the bowl and into the top of the sewer line at floor level. It's a good tool to have on hand, and they're not expensive. You can get a good one---1/2" cable rather than 3/8"---for less than $20. When you use it, have an empty 5 gallon bucket ready to put the auger cable in when you pull it out of the toilet. With luck it will have something nasty on it which was the thing blocking the line.

Since your friend said that the toilet works great after the line is cleared of roots, that's obviously contributing to the problem. That isn't a situation you can deal with from the bathroom (and if you could, you wouldn't want to) but the word "renters" sets off alarm bells for me. Try the toilet auger first. It's easy. If it doesn't solve the problem, you will have narrowed down the possibilities without having to take the plumbing apart to do so. I don't think you'll regret having one in your arsenal of plumbing problem tools.

Stan
 
Being in the septic system /sewer installation business , and reading your description on the problem , your problems in terms of priority are 1) the vent is not properly venting from the correct place , the roots in the line have grown enough to start clogging the pipe line again ,3) if you are on a septic system and you havent had the tank cleaned out recently (2yrs max)its time, 4) something in the toilet itelf. Good luck
 
Go with the toilet snake first. If you have to remove the toilet, use a Fluidmaster bowl gasket, #7500 when replacing it, not a wax ring.
 
If you have trees near the sewer line I would bet it's full of tree roots if terracta pipe was used to the septic tank. A power snake will probably clear the plugged line unless the roots are too large. We're on city water and sewage and my neighbors were plugged tight with tree roots. They had called Roto Rooter and they tried a long time using a power snake, but it was too full of big roots. They didn't charge the neighbor and my neighbor had to have the sewer line replaced. I saw that pipe when it was removed and it was packed full of roots. They used pvc pipe for the sewer from the house to the street. They never had any root problems after that.

I had the maple tree removed by the town near my sewer line. Hal
 
Got tired of fighting mine doing the same thing. Always thought it was the vent. It wasn"t . Not the line out or tree roots. It eas the gooseneck in the toilet. Got a snake through it a year ago and coudn"t this last time. I bought a new toilet. Problem fixed. What ever it was was as herd as concrete
 
This sounds nlike a root problem. I had a similar symptom many years ago when the pipe to the septic seperated and shifted.
That being said, I recently replaced an old toilet with an American Standard Champion 4 from "Homies". They advertize it as being "plunge free". I had my doubts about this claim since they never did any studies on me. I have "foiled" the best. Sure enough this thing could take your leg off and at 1.6 gallons per. And I agree; stand up before you flush.
 
ya got sink or bathtub same room, if they draining okay,cause usually its all going thru same line to septic tank. I just did mine last week replaced toilet,my as so full of rust deposits.
 
That air admittance valve looks to be way too small. A toilet requires a minimum vent size of 3 inches; 1-1/2 inches pipe has only one-quarter the cross section as 3 inch. And as stated by B&D, that vent setup looks to be guaranteed to plug.
 
Grandson, 1 1/2 yrs put a Christmas candle down ours. Never able to get it out, snakes, etc. Removed the toilet, went both ways, couldn"t get the thing out. Finally had to get a new toilet. Son took a 12ga with slugs to it, finally breaking it in enough parts that we found the candle -- about 5 inches long, 1 1/2 inches dia in the gooseneck.

Had to buy one of those mini-flush models. Not happy. Suprisingly, however, it does OK on flushing.
 
Working in a care center, I can tell you from experience it is the toilet. I have found everything from dentures to ballpoint pens in the trap. Don't ask me why or how they get there but they do. This home was built in 1976 and some of the old toilets were so corroded up that you could not get a snake thru them. Go to a big box store and get a toilet-in-a-box and be done with it. Also if the toilet was set with an extra thick wax ring it can cause problem also.
 
(quoted from post at 13:34:10 01/14/12)
Way too much thinkin' going on here!! get a toilet snake and pull the kid's toy out!!!!
Click to expand...
itting at the keyboard & jawing about it is easier & makes the intrigue last much longer than, "get 'er done". :wink:
 
It needs a vent because it dumps a lot of water quickly. You need to let the trapped air out of the system ahead of the water.




Try pulling the vent off the top of the inch and a half and see what happens.


You can run the vent out through the wall and then up the side of the house. Just make sure you have the horizontal part sloped so it doesn't hold water.
 
(quoted from post at 07:50:31 01/15/12) It needs a vent because it dumps a lot of water quickly. You need to let the trapped air out of the system ahead of the water.




Try pulling the vent off the top of the inch and a half and see what happens.


You can run the vent out through the wall and then up the side of the house. Just make sure you have the horizontal part sloped so it doesn't hold water.
Click to expand...
ay late, dollar short........he cleared the roots & all is well....see his other thread.
 
Down heah in Texas, the vent is to vent Methane gas from the septic tanks.

Considering the volume of the sewer line/distribution system and all that, the flush could accommodate itself numerous times in terms of compressed air, and in most roof vented systems, when the commode flushes, it closes off the sewer pipe from the vent....if it could and the vent is on the other end, meaning it is out of the loop until the effluent gets to the septic tank.

I go with the kids toy or what have you. Other thing is that newer toilets don't supply enough water to run effluent to it's destination causing backup problems. Other problem is too much paper, or too big a load to be flushed....effluent + paper necessary to complete the human unloading process.

Other problem could be a flat line. A sewer system requires about a 1/4"/lineal foot of fall for the water and the effluent to remain together and get to the desired destination. More or less causes opposite problems.

I did my house design and built it personally. I studied construction to know how to do the house and the septic delivery was part of it. Raised 4 kids in the house and had to remove Tonka Trucks from the sewer pipe more than once and in one instance rip out the bath room floor where the water from such an event ruined the wood sub-floor. Been in it 32 years now.

A 4" sewer pipe vs a 3" also helps immensely also.

HTH,

Mark
 
(quoted from post at 18:35:02 01/15/12) Down heah in Texas, the vent is to vent Methane gas from the septic tanks.

Considering the volume of the sewer line/distribution system and all that, the flush could accommodate itself numerous times in terms of compressed air, and in most roof vented systems, when the commode flushes, it closes off the sewer pipe from the vent....if it could and the vent is on the other end, meaning it is out of the loop until the effluent gets to the septic tank.

I go with the kids toy or what have you. Other thing is that newer toilets don't supply enough water to run effluent to it's destination causing backup problems. Other problem is too much paper, or too big a load to be flushed....effluent + paper necessary to complete the human unloading process.

Other problem could be a flat line. A sewer system requires about a 1/4"/lineal foot of fall for the water and the effluent to remain together and get to the desired destination. More or less causes opposite problems.

I did my house design and built it personally. I studied construction to know how to do the house and the septic delivery was part of it. Raised 4 kids in the house and had to remove Tonka Trucks from the sewer pipe more than once and in one instance rip out the bath room floor where the water from such an event ruined the wood sub-floor. Been in it 32 years now.

A 4" sewer pipe vs a 3" also helps immensely also.

HTH,

Mark
Click to expand...
had thought the same thing (flush could accommodate itself numerous times in terms of compressed air,...and ...the vent is to vent Methane gas from the septic tanks) , but the proof is in the empirical approach. I have a cabin with no other item tied to septic tank, except the toilet (no lav, no bath), so I used tape & coffee can lid to cover the vent & then flushed.........darn near overflowed! Very sluggish flush too. surprised me, too! I guess one could claim it still worked without a vent, but not well. Removed cover, flushed, with authority, without any rise of toilet bowl water level. My assessment; the slight back pressure is enough to slow the flow up & over the toilet trap??

As far as the vent where there is a bath or lavatory, it is necessary to prevent sucking the trap empty.....if empty, then the methane will enter the house, but the fill of the toilet will replenish it's trap.

Never too old to learn! :roll:
 
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