Hello,
I just replaced a couple toilets in the house with some new ones. The others were 40-50 years old and had seen better days. One of them does not go down properly. You can hear the water draining slowly after the bowl fills up. It also started doing that recently with the old toilet so it's not the toilet itself. Also, if the old toilet was used for solid waste purposes, it would not swirl down properly. So for years I haven't used that toilet for that-only liquid waste. So the pipoe is not clogged from solid waste or toilet paper, etc.

Each toilet has it's own stack. The one that seems partially clogged also has a toilet feeding into it from the basement. That one goes down fine. So it seems it must be clogged in-between the basement floor and the toilet upstairs (one story house). Here is a picture of the suspect toilet stack if it helps. It actually appears to be in decent shape. I've seen worse. The house is about 44 years old. There is also the bathroom sink next to the toilet but it doesn't look like it drains into that same stack.

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So my question is, could there be that much corrosion in a pipe that size to mostly clog it? Can a snake open it up? I didn't really look down in there when I had the toilet off. I will be pulling it off again though. I know some people would say just replace the stack with PVC but I have to take more of the basement apart to do that. I'd rather unclog it if it can successfully be done.

Thanks.

You are correct, I would recommend replacing at least a portion of the stack with PVC. It looks like you have rust on the exterior of the pipe and corrosion coming through on the back of the T. Yes the line can be augured, but to do it effectively, you need a large machine with 3" blades (since it looks like 3" pipe from the picture) to clear out any obstructions and scrape down the walls of the pipe. Cleaning is cheaper, but my end up causing a hole in that old cast and start a leak. Caveat Emptor

Ok, thanks. Yeah, it might be best to just replace it all with PVC. I'll inspect the pipe's exterior closer also. I was curious if the pipe could close up that much just from corrosion but I guess it can. I thought about the size of the blade needed to cut through the pipe effectively. That's a large blade for sure.
Thanks.

I just gained a little better access so replacing it might be the best way to go. I need to look into exactly how to do it. I'm assuming the flange is held in place at/above the floor level by straps that hold up the pipe (similar to what's in the picture)?
Thanks.

The flange is secured to the floor from the top side of the floor under the toilet. It generally isn't secured on the vertical portion, only supported on the horizontal portion. By the way, save the existing strapping, just unscrew the nuts and bolts and spin it up out of the way to reuse it. It looks like it is in good shape.