Bubbling Toilet

Mike Finley

On a condo I am renovating for a rental prop. I don't know the conditions of the plumbing, it's a foreclosure, for all I know the idiot loser who was kicked out poured cement down the drains!

The toilet on the basement floor is slow to flush, didn't go down at all, I snaked it with a 25 foot snake, but all it did was drain slowly, nothing came out on the end of the snake. Got it to flush maybe 3-4 times then it's back again to not going down. Upstairs toilet right above this one when you flush it the water in this toilet goes up and down a bit, plus bubbles come up into the bowl.

What's going on? What next?

JamesNLA

A 25 ft snake is not a sewer snake. Go get the right size snake and run it all the way out. Also verify the vent stack is clear. If you are sucessful in running the snake out yank that WC and pour in water from a 5 gal bucket.

LOL cement down the drain on the way out the door.

Don't ya just love people?

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-Adrock

KillerToiletSpider

Yeah, that is a partially blocked sewer, it needs to be rodded to the tie in to the city main.

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A flush is better than a full house.

Mike Finley

Okay, a 50 footer is the answer then?

I'm curious why the 2 other toilets upstairs flush without a problem, I would assume they would be backed up to, or maybe the runs from the toilets are higher so they slowly drain enough for them to flush normally?

mdshunk

Because they're using the pipework between the upstairs toilet and the stoppage as a "tank".

KillerToiletSpider

Pace it off from the C.O. to the city main, I doubt fifty feet will make it. When I did that sort of work we always carried at least 150' of cable.

__________________
A flush is better than a full house.

KentWhitten

One of my kids tossed a bath toy down the toilet once (my recollection was a sailboat)and it got stuck in the gooseneck of the toilet itself. Not that anyone really wants to, but have you checked for anything stuck inside of the actual toilet?

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KillerToiletSpider

The fact that the toilet directly above it affects the water level of the toilet in question rules this out.

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A flush is better than a full house.

Mike Finley

I took the toilet off, nothing in the toilet.

I went to Lowes and Home Depot to see if I could get a longer snake. Seems like 25 feet and under is like $50 and over 25 feet is $350!

I figured to just spend the money on the snake instead of the rooter man and have the snake if every needed, but damn that's expensive.

MechanicalDVR

A hand snake will never do the retrieving job that a power snake would do. You should have rented a snake with an assortment of cutter heads. I have had similar clogs that acted just like that, the tough ones turned out to be cut offs of the sewer piping. Small rings that were cut off when they set the flanges on the finish. Do you know anyone with a "See Snake" so you can take a look down the line?

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747

Ya they got all kinds of good heads. The best in my oppion is the hook head. Where it has a actually hook on the end. When you reverse using that one you will definately have tree roots attached when coming backup the riser.

Ps. 350 dollars that outradgeous my roto rooter guy only charged 95. He had a nice one which was manual feed. The auto feed you have to watch because if it hits something that snake will bite your arm if close. My plumber has a scar on this forearm where his sewer snake bit him because it hit something and his is auto foward and auto reverse. Instead of manual.

Double-A

Mike, you're in over your head. No offense, but get someone out there that has real experience in this. Several things could be the problem.

Bad vent.
Bad bowl.
Bad parts in tank not introducing water to bowl fast enough.
Partial clog in building drain.
Partial clog in building sewer.

The water level moving when another toilet is flushed is not that significant. The fact that it bubbles and or gurgles means a vent problem or a vent problem caused by a clog/partial clog.

Get you an esspert in drainiology and give dat place a good case of 'crap flows downhill'.

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New York Times, July 20, 2006

MechanicalDVR

No offense but a toilet doesn't need a vent to flush. Yes it needs one by code but isn't necessary to clear the bowl.

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KillerToiletSpider

This is true, a toilet is a true siphon, adding air weakens the flush.

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A flush is better than a full house.

Mike Finley

I know, I'm hard headed, so I'm about 75% ready to give up and pay some damn fellow trades man to fix it for me! I know what I need to do but I'm not ready to admit it yet, I'm gonna throw one more try at it if I can find a 50ft snakey cheap. It just seemed like I was right at the problem as my 25 footer ran out of line. I swear it's a GI Joe doll in there!

Double-A

I think it all depends on the type of toilet, but I must say, for most non-blow out style toilets, you need a vent behind the toilet or the flush can stall.

Think about it for a moment, you're introducing 1.5 - 3.5 gallons of water, or more into a 3 or 4 inch pipe. This displaces air in the pipe, and that air has to move someplace. Unless the toilet is well elevated above the drain, it cannot produce enough pressure to compress the air column below it (remember, .45 psi per foot is what a water column produces just from its own weight).

Flushing to a shallow drain that is horizontal? Perhaps, but that air still has to go someplace. In 4" pipe, we're displacing 1 foot of air for every .66 gallons of water, so 5.3 feet of air for a 3.5 gallon flush. In 3" pipe we're displacing 1 foot for every .38 gallons, so that is 9.21 feet.

That air has to go someplace or the back pressure will stall the flush, siphon be damned.

__________________
"My clients’ wishes are the center of my attention." -- David Guido, a contractor in Woodstock, N.Y.
New York Times, July 20, 2006

JamesNLA

hhmmmm, well without knowing how much it's moving, I would still keep that in my mind when trouble shooting.

And Mike, seriously go rent one. 100 ft or 150, cost about 60 ish for the day. But I will warn you.....keep your mouth closed when rooting it out!!!!

__________________
"....And then we all switch places when I ring the bell"
-Adrock

KillerToiletSpider

There is enough air in the empty pipe to create the siphon, once it is created, it doesn't stop until there is nothing left to siphon, you don't need air once the siphon is created. A blocked sewer will actually pull the water out of toilet bowls as it slowly drains overnight, because a perfect siphon exists.

__________________
A flush is better than a full house.

JamesNLA

You do realize the 3-4" sewer line is tied to the main drain, which in turn has other drains connected to it, which has other vents to it. There IS venting available to displace.

Now if your talking about having NO vent for a WC, I personally have never seen that...I'd like to one day, but only for laughing purposes. So think in theory...This is not a pressurized system. The air being displaced has only one place to go, back to the 6" (or whatever size) city tie in. The little amount of air actually being displaced will enter the main sewer. Or the flush will suck the trap (wc) "dry". Water weight about 9 lbs per gallon, it will flush.

__________________
"....And then we all switch places when I ring the bell"
-Adrock

MechanicalDVR

I said a toilet doesn't need a vent from experience. I have seen it in houses and buildings where there should have been but they were never piped in and I was the one to go back and install them and all the toilets and urinals flushed just fine. I have also seen premanufactured "engineered" homes were the local plumbing inspectors threw fits because the toilets had no vents, the 2 1/2" pvc that the toilets were connected to were wet vented by the lav and kitchen sink but they had AAV's instead of through the roof piping. Years ago when I was traveling the world, I saw a toilet just attached to a drain line more than once and was amazed to see how well they worked.

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