The town I live in had a sewer "jet vac" truck on my street... when they were doing some sort of work, my drains in my house were rattling/gurgling and the water level in my toilet bowl was moving a bit.

Is that normal?

Yes, it's normal. The powerful machine was placing more pressure on your drainage system than normal and the water level was fluctuating in the traps.

The gurgling and moving toilet water doesn't mean I have a clogged roof vent does it?



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possibly and improperly installed vent. the vent is supposed to prevent oscillation of water in a toilet bowl. although, sometimes very high winds blowing over a vent stack can make the bowl water oscillate.

thanks one for "normal" and one for "venting issue"....

should I be concerned and look into a clogged vent?



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I had customers in the past that after a city main backed up and the jetter went through, all the houses got the traps siphoned out. Improperly vented? I'm sure. Did it cause any adverse effects at any other point for many years prior (and probably after), no. A city main backup and the extreme pressure drop that your drain will experience with a 4000 PSI jetter (or higher) isn't normal and the suction it causes are far beyond what your system normally experiences. Your system probably functions fine on a normal load. If you want to test it, fill your washing machine, bathtub, lavatory sinks and kitchen sink all up with water, then release them all and flush the toilets. Leave one drain somewhere as a test and see if it gets the trap sucked out. If it does, then worry about the vent.

Its getting stranger for me. Today they did work down the street, looks like they were replacing a section of sewer.... this was a few blocks away though.

This evening I am noticing some gurgling in a sink. Its a double sink, and one of the sinks is gurgling when water is flowing thru the drain. The other sink is not doing it though.

These two sinks have an AAV under them.

Can I assume perhaps air expelling thru the sewer because of the repair down the street? Or is this unrelated and perhaps a venting issue? And if its a venting issue, these two sinks have been working correctly (no noise) for a few years now with an AAV (not connected to atmospheric vent). Has the AAV failed? Draining the fixtures like tub toilets have no effect on this situation.

Great day to be having drain problems!!!

Any ideas?



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temporarily remove the AAV's and see what happens.

It is still doing it with the AAV removed....

what does that mean?

The city main may be backed up and pushing water into everyone's line.

I am not beyond calling a pro but I am not sure if its related to the sewer work being done in my area or not....

Theres only one fixture in the house showing this "spitting/gurgle".
Its part of a double vanity with separate traps with one AAV for both.
All fixture (including this one)drain quickly. No backups.

The spitting/gurgle slowed and stopped after about 2 hours last night. Likely 4 hours after the crew down the street completed some sort of repair where they had the street torn up and when I saw it, what looked like a huge industrial "fernco" coupling. Im waiting to see if it starts again today.

Could it have been air expelling thru the sewer because of a city repair? '

To rule out a venting issue:

I assume even if my main stack was completely blocked, since these fixtures have an AAV they should operate correctly?

Do you think this is indication of a clog (partial) on my side?

Why did I only see this occur on one fixture?


(I ask all these questions because about a month ago I had an outside cleanout installed, haven't noticed anything out of the ordinary until I saw these sewer crews in the area..... I hope its not indication that the cleanout repair I had done has failed (removed about 6' of cast iron and replaced with plastic with rubber couplings).