Hi,

I have a two-story colonial home built in 1961. The house has a single vent pipe, approximately 2" in diameter. I have been having trouble with a toilet clogging very easily on the ground floor of the home. The toilet is a 6-year old American Standard Cadet 2 toilet with a 2" flushway. It seems to clog much too easily (not a lot of paper used before flushing). Also, when someone flushes the older toilet (which seldom clogs) in the upstairs bathroom, which is located directly above the ground floor bathroom, large air bubbles come up through the downstairs toilet. I have contacted American Standard for some help and they suggested my vent pipe is clogged.

I climbed a ladder and stuck a 3/4" garden hose into the vent pipe, but due to two 45-degree elbows just under the roof I could not get the hose more than 2 or 3 feet into the vent pipe. I ran water through the vent and it drained fine. To search for a possible clog past the elbows, I extended a 50' electrician's fish tape line into the vent until it hit a hard surface and wouldn't go any further. When I pulled it back up, it was clean (no debris) and dry.

Is it likely that the 2" vent pipe is too small for the home? Someone once told me that the newer toilets flush more water than the ones in 1961 and that the vent pipe is probably too small. I have read in a lot of places that newer homes come with 4" vent pipes. If I need to replace it, what is involved in the repair? I would do as much of the work myself as possible.

Thanks,

Dan

Toilets use significantly less water now than in the past. While your vent pipe is undersized for an entire home, this is not what is causing the problems with your toilet. When air bubbles up through other fixtures, it is usually an indication of a partially clogged drainage line--IMO, this is not a vent problem, but a partial clog in your main line.

Deb-The Pipewench

if you fill a 5 gallon bucket of water and quickly pour it down the toilet and it "flushes" and drains then you have no clog, but a poorly functioning toilet which would require a little diagnosis.

Deb has offered you some very good professional advice.
Some plumbing jobs require a licesned professional with the proper
equipment and training to use it. Poking holes in a restriction doesn't get the job done. Neither does chemicals. After 50 years of faithful service, your waste lines deserve better treatment by a licensed pro.

Please consider the advice offered.
Best Wishes

To heck with all the advice, I reccomend he get a toilet with a smooth exit, instead of that Am Std. P.O.S. that is installed in his houwe at present. The reason for his toilet clogs is not in the venting, it's in the exit pipe at the bottom of the bowl. If he looks closely at the exit tube from the bowl he will see a 90deg offset in said exit tube, which does not FLOW smoothly.

For one reason or anohter fixture manufacturers have given us a 'low water use' W.C. with flow restrictions that actually use more water to flush to completion, w/o clogging. As I recall from my heydays as a busy journeyman plbr, toilets used to FLOW upon flushing, without a restriction to flow in the exit tube.

I have ranted about this before but nothing will change unless we as Plumbers "Protecting the Health of the Nation" refuse to buy and install these worthless P.O.S.

Yours in Plumbing that FLOWS,
Rudy

I'll tried the 5-gallon bucket test, and the toilet flushed fairly well. I poured pretty quickly, then as it was flushing I just turned the bucket over and let it all out. It filled up the toilet when I turned it over, but it went right on down.

I looked at the side of the toilet and do see that there appears to be a sharp 90 just before the exit. There is also another sharp bend before that one though, which actually looks like it is even sharper than 90-degrees.

What would be a better toilet replacement? Are the newer 4-series American Standard toilets any better? (4" flush valve, 2-3/8" flushway)

As far as a clog in the main line, I guess they would need to open the cleanout to the sewer and snake it clean?



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The Cadet 3 is a good toilet. The jury still out on the Champion 4, because 1,2,& 3 had "issues"

We are replacing 400 toilets in a older hotel with all cast iron drains. Thanks to the regular posters to this forum, we chose the Gerber Viper elongated bowl toilet. The price was extremely reasonable and they flush absolutely GREAT! I know there are better flushing toilets out there but they are very pricey and don't flush that much better.

Still it sounds like a line problem to me...
Funny how an upstairs toilet make the downstairs one blow bubbles...
I would consider Deb's advice to be spot on!

As for the Cadet 2 it is a POS and an upgrade would be nice but it will not stop the bubbling.

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Is the toilet actually "blowing" bubbles or is it just gurgling? Blowing would mean that air is trying to escape indicating a plugged mainline. Gurgling would indicate a suction that tells us the venting is insufficient. It is true the newer toilets send down less water, but they send it down faster than the older toilets. I think it is probably a vent issue.

every toilet i have ever heard "gurgle" need the line snaked

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PLUMBERS "Protecting The Health Of The Nation"

Where I do a large portion of work we have a lot of "beach cabins" that have turned into full time homes and in turn people have done a lot of unpermited add ons. In these cases I have seen toilets syphon or gurgle when someone flushes a toilet upstairs, because of insufficient venting. It was just an idea and opinion so someone doesn't get tunnel vision on one possible cause.

IF water drains through the vent pipe it is not clogged. If it is a vent problem it is because of the way it is installed, not the size. As a practical matter even the smallest pipe would probably vent the toilet adequately, but codes are developed to cover a wide range of possibilities which is why the larger pipes are required.

Funny how an upstairs toilet make the downstairs one blow bubbles...

That would be a funciton of an improper installed vent, or rather the downstairs toilet connected to the upstairs drain line and trying to use the same pipe as the vent.

Well, I replaced the Cadet 2 with a Champion 4 (got a great deal so decided why not). I took three arms lengths of paper and threw it in, pulled the handle, and it didn't flush...I adjusted the chain length on the flush valve and raised the water level in the bowl a bit to get it to flush better. It sends the water down really quickly, and I think the flush valve shuts too quickly, because when I hold the handle down and let it flush all of the water in the bowl it does a better job. I'll know in a day or two if this one flushes better than the Cadet 2 did.

As someone posted above, this did not solve the other problem though. Flushing the upstairs toilet still causes a large air bubble to come up through the Champion 4 toilet. All plumbing in the home shares the same vent pipe, although I am not really sure how everything is connected.

For better troubleshooting, here's a quick hand sketch showing the plumbing layout in the home:

[i479.photobucket.com]

Thanks for all the help so far!

As you can see from the sketch, there is a clothes washer drain that connects right at the centerline of the sewer cleanout fitting that exits the house. It only rises ~18 inches above the centerline of the cleanout, and is in the basement. The first floor toilet is above this. I spoke with someone from Roto Rooter on the phone and he said if the main line was clogged I'd have sewage coming back into the house, probably through the washer drain. What Deb suggested is that a partial blockage is causing my air bubble in the downstairs bathroom though. How would that happen?

State College, PA has very hard water, and we have a garbage disposal in the kitchen, so it would not surprise me if years of buildup are present in the sewer pipe.



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with a restricted line all the water is rushing from up above and hits an aera that isnt as large, well that slows it down and causes a recoil so to speak and thus your burp downstairs.

or as hj pointed out it could just be installed totally wrong

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PLUMBERS "Protecting The Health Of The Nation"

I've even seen where a belly in the line made that happen.

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First, if an inspector saw the piping, assuming your drawing is correct, he would spend the first five minutes laughing his head off, and the next half hour writing the rejection slip. If the drawing is correct, that is the reason for your problem, and maybe a few you don't even know about yet.

With a buiding that age, you may have a house trap which would simulate a stoppage, but not cause one.

How far is the kitchen drain line from this toilet?Is there a vent on this kitchen drain line?You need one.If there is one there be sure it is clear.The way it look's to me the kitchen would be the wet vent for this toilet,so if it's drain line before the toilet or ,not normal, but happens. It's vent is clogged .It might be your problem.Good Luck.

"Well, I replaced the Cadet 2 with a Champion 4 (got a great deal so decided why not)."

Unless they paid you a ton of money you didn't get a great deal...
Champion 4 means that it is on its 4th redesign...
It's a perpetual lemon in the Am. Std. line...

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Although ,I wish Red would use a different term to describe American Standards repeated failures at bowl design.I agree with him.and would send you toward a new toto.Yes, Red even over the class five Kohler's.Your problem as drawn,by you still leads me to the drain line vent of the kitchen .It is where the protection of the toilets seal must take place.Hope that is where the sage clogged line is .Let us know how you find the solution to this problem.

The kitchen drain is less than 10 feet from the toilet. There is no vent for the kitchen drain. The kitchen drain goes through a standard 1.5" trap and then directly into the main sewer exit from the house. Incidently, the kitchen drain backed up today and I had to open it with a pressure device (water bladder hooked up to garden hose).

I'm new to all of this - why would an inspector laugh and what problems should I be anticipating?

I know the Am Std 4 toilet isn't great, but I must say it hasn't clogged once since the day it was installed, and I would have had to plunge the Cadet 2 quite a few times in that time period, so FWIW I'm happy with it.

Thanks for all the helpful replies!

I've been reading online and saw a bunch of sketches by Carson Dunlop that explain some of the terminology in the replies here, so I should be able to better state a few things. First of all, every drain except for the kitchen sink and the clothes washer are located within 5 feet of the main drain stack for the home. Each fixture has an S-bend trap beneath it with no other connections (i.e. no parallel vent stack). Since the downstairs toilet appears to have air pushed out of it when the upstairs one is flushed, I'm starting to lean towards the advice that the main sewer connection from the home is partly clogged. There is no siphoning of the toilet bowl water, it is just a bunch of large air bubbles that get pushed into the bowl. I need to check the downstairs bathroom sink, kitchen sink, and clothes washer drain to see if they bubble also. It could be that those pipes are small enough and far enough from the main stack that they are not affected as much as the toilet, which is just over a foot away from the main stack and has a much larger pipe diameter, making it an easier path for the air to push through. Does this make any sense?

No.The trap s.hold against the back draft of air.and the lessor traps the lav's at 1 1/4 would react way sooner than the 3plus of the wc if that where he case.Good Luck.Still waiting for the cure.The kitchen sink clogged ??

Kitchen drain isn't clogged. I ran some sulfuric acid drain opener through it today and it drains better than ever, but the downstairs toilet still burps air when the upstairs toilet is flushed. I bit the bullet and called a local plumber who should be visiting me tomorrow. Will post an update when I know something else.

that sounds like a plan....be sure to let teh plumber know you put acid down the line before he starts

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PLUMBERS "Protecting The Health Of The Nation"

Plumber visited me this morning. The problem is that the air rushing down the main stack from the toilet above has nowhere to go. Apparently there should be a vent outside the house on the line to the sewer, but it is likely that the previous owners of the house cut this off or buried it when building the deck that is attached to the rear of the house (only a few inches above grade). There is a fernco cap on the line from the kitchen sink to the main stack, and when we removed that cap we could feel a lot of air coming out when the upstairs toilet was flushed, and the bubbling in the downstairs toilet went away.

The plumber is going to check on a Studor AAV to see if it lets air OUT and said I could probably put one of those in under the kitchen sink. I'm thinking that what I really need is an air-release valve like those used on irrigation systems - are there any that meet plumbing codes? Also, it seems like a bad idea to let that air into the house, although that is where it is all going now anyway through the downstairs toilet. Any code/health issues with doing this? At least through the toilet the air has to come past standing water in the bowl.

The Studor vent will not let air out! It only allows air in.

It sounds like you have a house trap and the vent was removed.
You need to have the vent reinstalled or the house trap removed.

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I decided to remove some boards from my deck and found the vent pipe. Whoever built the deck took off the cap and placed it upside-down next to the pipe, wadded up some cardboard and stuffed it into the end of the pipe, then covered the open-end of the pipe with duct tape. The decking was up against the top of the vent pipe.

I removed the duct tape and cardboard and got someone to flush the toilet for me...problem solved! I put the cap back on the pipe, cut a hole in the deck boards to allow room for the cap, which now sticks up a little bit above the deck, and screwed the boards back down. I'm thinking about getting one of the push-in style caps that has the carbon filter to replace the original cast-iron cap.