What the hell is wrong with this toilet?

What ya gots there is a thingy on your do-hicky! Clear that out and you'll be fixed right up. :wink:


Ummm.. Whatddya gots fer a terlet? Is it just your standard run of the mill terlet or it it one of those fancy pressurized "green" jobbers that the muckety-mucks gots?

When ya flush does it normally do a "woosh!" or does water just run down from under the rim into the bowl?

The water runs down from the rim... and runs down and runs down until the toilet is ready to overflow and then it stops... and then it drains and then it gurgles because it's empty.

It is an unfancy toilet that came with the house. I would guess, judging by it's style that it was put into the house when the sewer pipe was replaced about 4 years ago. It isn't an old toilet it just doesn't work.

Every once in a while the upstairs toilet will do the EXACT same thing.

I live in fear of anyone ever having to pee at my house.

Boom, I think ya need to talk to OH-So Bu(I get all confused here)

Anyway, Osso had a similar defecatory nightmare once...

RH

I think you need....















H2O MAN!

You need a plumber, unless you're hardy. Likely there is an object stuck in the trap, like a toy or a comb, something that won't dissolve. It works until the object collects enough paper to clog, you plunge the paper off and it works again, for a while. The plumber will remove the toilet, remove the object, then reinstall the toilet.

Mine just wouldn't flush. Slight improvement with the plunger thing, but not much. I ended up using the other bathroom for over a year. It had been a new toilet, the last thing installed by the contractors, and of course it flushed when they left, or flushed enough, but that was the last time.

In time, one of those fellows quit with the contractor and has been helping some of us out with odd jobs. It took him a bit of time, but he found a child's orange toy screwdriver in the U-tube (or is is S tube) of the toilet itself.

Slowly slowly I figured out that the box it came in from Home Depot must have been opened by a previous buyer, the toilet didn't work, and they brought it back. I say this with assurance, since no children have been in my house since I moved in.

septic or sewer?

oops also forgot to ask what extra stuff gets or has been flushed and how long has this been going on?

darn how about tree roots in the line?

Okies!

99% of the time something (usually a kids toy, a toothbrush or, as in Osso's case, a screwdriver!) gets dropped into the bowl and flushed and lodges in the trap that is built into the toilet itself. Your's probably looks like the center illustration in this pic:



Stuff that isn't bendy gets wedged into the little hairpin turn in there and then other things you flush get hung up on it and the whole thing gets plugged up.

When you are using the plunger you are probably loosening some of the "other stuff" for a while and the toilet works well enough. After a while it builds back up again and you have your problem.

So you need to get out whetever is up in there. It isn't hard but to be honest, most people just don't want to do it themselves. If that's your case then just call a plumber and let them do their thing. Otherwise, the easiest way to do it is to uninstall the toilet, turn it over and reach in from the drain opening in the bottom and pull out whatever is in there.

The fact that it happens in your other toilet sometimes does cause me some concern though. If something is lodged in one it won't effect any others so it is possible that your "jam" isn't in the toilet at all. It may be in the sewer pipe (which would effect both toilets) in which case you probably need a plumber to clear it. You can rent a power auger to do it yourself but it's a messy, messy job and the augers can be a PITA to use. Most people will glady pay someone else to deal with the frustration.

When living in the dorms at college, we had a problem with our industrial strength toilet.

Maintenance came to fix it and pulled out a pair of underwear and a fork.




Glad I could help boom.

Removing the toilet isn't that hard. We just replaced the wax seal on the one that mostly works and it didn't take much time.

I see that perhaps there is some kind of plug in there catching things but I still don't understand why after it fills all the way up it drains completely to the glugluglug depth of about an inch of water in the bowl. Would that happen because of some sort of plug?

It's a sewer system and the pipe was replaced just a few years ago so I would think that it is in good shape.

My last name is the same as a popular brand of toilet, and even though Wally doesn't like that brand, I made him put one in my bathroom because I think it's cool.

Are you writing this stuff down?

From reading the Home Improvement section, you probably need a Fleck 5600 valve system or a Clack. I will go over there and ask them to come here and help you.


Help is the the way!


Chair - your last name is American Standard??

close Mame....Universal Rundle.

My maiden name was Sanitary Wares Mfg

Is Mfg spelled out in full on your birth certificate? That must have been a bitch to register in school.

*nods* It isn't hard. Some people are just squeamish.



Yep. Let's say that the original, unclogged opening through the toiilet is 3". If you have an obstruction in there it might be reduced to an effective opening of 1/2".

When you flush, water comes into the bowl faster than it can drain out through the 1/2" opening so it backs up in the bowl. At that point the water level in the bowl is higher than the top of the hairpin. If some water is getting through that 1/2" opening in the the clog it will create a siphon and slowly draw all of the water out of the bowl until it starts drawing air and breaks the siphon. Whatever water is left in the hairpin will drain back into the bottom of the bowl. Normally, the air bubble happens fairly quickly so you end up with 2"-3" of water in the bowl but if that passage is partially blocked the siphon can suck up almost all of the water so you might only end up with 1/2" to an 1" in the bowl - which is what it sounds like is happening in your case.



Sometimes when they replace a sewer line there is a slight mismatch in the pipe sizes and alignment. It creates a spot in the line where things can get hung up while passing through and create a blockage. Pipe systems (especially fairly new one's) rarely get blocked in the center of a straight run. 99% of the time, any blockage in a drainage pipe system will be in a joint between sections of pipe or in fittings where the line changes direction.

The reason it is draining to so low is related to the bowl filling up before it goes down.

During a normal flush the bowl empties and then refills as the tank fills.

If the bowl doesn't flush when it normally does in the cycle due to something clogging the trap then the tank fills while the bowl is still high.
This adds more water to the bowl until finally it swirls down. That means when the bowl finally empties the tank is almost full so no water is running to refill the bowl after it flushes. That is why you only have an inch of water left after the flush.

Thanks for diagnosing my toilet problems! Really! I think we can fix that.

I guess I'm more squeamish about paying a plumber than I am about ripping the house apart. This particular bathroom is mid-list on our things to remodel. I think it might have just moved up a few notches.