We have a toilet that is not draining well. When flushed, the water level rises in the bowl and then slowly goes down. Most of the time, we don't get a vortex. We (my plumber and I) have pulled the toilet and run a video camera down the drain hole in the floor. It was clean - no blockages at all. When the toilet was off for the camera process, we poured large amounts of water down the drain hole in the floor and never got a back up. From what we can tell without opening the walls, the toilet and the sink, which is about 5 feet away, share the same drain pipe and vent pipe. If you look down into the drain hole when the toilet is removed, you can see the pipe turn toward the sink. We thought it might be a plugged vent line creating pressure in the line. We went to the attic, identified the 2 inch PVC vent line we thought was above it and cut through it. When the problem toilet flushed, we could easily hear the water running down the drain line from the vent line in the attic and could feel a suction - so we are pretty sure we got the correct vent line. The toilet flush did not improve with the vent line cut. We fixed the vent line in the attic. We replaced the toilet with a new toilet and the new toilet had the same problem - it even seemed a little worse. The house was built in the 80s and we are talking about an upstairs bathroom. I purchased the house about a year ago and the toilet has never worked correctly. We are considering getting one of the power flush toilets that usually don't go in homes because of the noise, but that is pretty expensive and I feel like we don't really understand the root cause of the problem. We are seriously scratching our heads. Anyone have any ideas?
Thanks!!

The first thing is to get a plumber who knows what he is doing. WE would NEVER cut a vent line to make a toilet flush better. Changing to a power flush toilet is probably NOT going to improve things. From your description, we cannot tell you WHAT the problem is, but are sure you are on the wrong track to curing it.

Thanks for your prompt reply. I'm afraid I wasn't very clear on the vent line or maybe I'm just confused. He cut the vent line to rule out a pressure problem. We thought maybe an animal somehow got into the vent line from the roof and plugged it. We couldn't get to the roof very easily without damaging the slate. It was also possible that the toilet didn't get vented properly in the initial construction - so that is how we tried to rule that out. I know the dangers of having a vent line open in the attic. It was only open for 7 to 10 minutes for trouble shooting and then promptly connected with a PVC fitting and the blue weld solvent. Thanks.

Does the toilet on the main floor work ok, also the laundry room washing machine work ok? Is the only drain problem with the upstairs toilet? What about the tub/shower in that upstairs bathroom, does it drain properly?

If you have a sewer line cleanout access out in your yard you can remove the cap from it and then flush the upstairs toilet to see if it flushes any better. Also, do you know if your home has a "whole house trap" in the sewer line between your house and the city sewer line connection point?





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My point was that it was UNNECESSARY. Very few. IF ANY, flushing problems are due to a "clogged vent", and I have NEVER found that to be the problem. In fact, MOST upstairs problems are in the toilet itself, but since you changed toilets, that would make the piping the most likely cause and if so, changing to a pressure toilet will still not cure the problme.

What is the distance from the toilet flange to the bottom of the 90 in the floor. I.e. the height of the riser pipe. If It's a long drop, like more than 2 feet, you can have excess of back pressure buildup. Also, if the toilet is discharging down to a sanitary tee laid on it's back or a short radius 90, that can cause problems. How far down did he send the camera? Did you notice any illegal piping like sanitary tees laying on their side?

StuckinLodi - we are not having problems with the other toilets upstairs or the other toilets on the first floor or the toilets in the basement. We also are not having trouble with the laundry. The sink that is next to the problem toilet is a little slow to drain. The shower next to the toilet seems to be in a different drain pipe (riser I think is the plumbing term). We also have a bathroom in the basement more or less under the problem toilet upstairs and have not had problems with that toilet or sink. There is also a shower down there that is not used regularly but I don't know of any problems with it.

I don't have a sewer clean out in the yard that I am currently aware of. However there is one in the backside of a cabinet in the basement. I'm not sure I can get it open without pulling the built in cabinet off the wall. If I need to, I can. I'm hoping I don't have to since we are getting good flushes from the toilet eight feet away from it, but I'm clearly not the expert.

I don't know of any whole house traps, but that doesn't mean there aren't any hidden somewhere. It also appears that the drain pipes (risers) enter the slab in the basement in multiple places and then connect to each other somewhere and then go into the city sewer somewhere.

Rigidman - The distance from the flange to the bottom of the 90 isn't very far. Maybe 9 inches or so. The toilet discharges down into a 90, not a T. I am not sure about the T that must be in the floor under/behind the sink or somewhere between the sink and the toilet. The plumber ran the camera down a pretty long way. The cord was wrapped on a spindle thing and I think at least 20 to 30 feet of it went down the hole - maybe much more. I remember it going down a long straight pipe on the monitor. I'm not qualified to answer the question about any illegal plumbing. Right now I'm wishing I had had the foresight to video his camera monitor with my phone so I could post it to YouTube for you to see. Sorry, I wasn't thinking of that. The space between the upstairs floor and the downstairs ceiling is thicker than in most homes - probably 18 to 24 inches. I don't see any reason why they would have used a short radius 90 - but you never know.

One interesting thing i failed to mention is that if you take a full bucket of water and dump it in the toilet so that the water level comes all the way up to the lower side of the rim, it tends to have enough pressure to get a flush going and once it starts it continues all the way to forming the vortex and a normal flush.

Thanks everyone! I really appreciate your input and expertise!



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Could it be that the model of toilet has such a small amount of water in the tank and the tank drain opening is one of the smaller ones? So you don't get a good force of water from the tank when you flush it? When I replaced my Mom's toilets last year I noticed that some models had a bigger drain hole (where the flapper covers) that other models. When I checked further into it they said that the larger the tank drain hole is, the stronger the flush, and that was important with today's low-water toilets. When you replaced the toilet and it didn't fix anything, was it the same size tank drain hole as the old one? Back when toilet tanks were larger the size of the tank drain hole didn't matter because there was plenty of water in the tank to do a good flush. Also, some toilets have a hole at the bottom of the bowl where the drain tunnel starts, water shoots out of that hole when you flush, that helps to get the water moving thru the toilet trap and down the sewer drain. So maybe replacing the toilet was the right idea but you didn't get one that works the best??

Agree 100% with HJ it is most likely a drain problem and it could very well be an animal that got into to the piping and is stuck where it can not be seen. If you can drop a camera down the VTR even cutting it in the attic and repairing after the camera it may be helpful. Since just the upstairs bath is affected it tells me that what ever is partially blocking the line whether the vent or the drain is somewhere between the first and second floor. Do any of the first floor fixtures gurgle when something is flushed?

PlumbCat TM 2003


Plumbermandan

Stuckinlodi is asking the right questions. The newer low flush toilets need to have at least a 3" Douglas Valve (what the flapper seals to) American Standard makes a 4" Douglas Valve where in a video they show it flushing approximately 8 golf balls down with ease. Assuming all of the piping is done correctly, I would lean toward having the toilet with a large Douglas Valve to flush properly. Also always make sure you have the correct flapper for the model of your toilet....save a lot of time by making sure.

Thanks for the replies. I really appreciate the help.

PlumberManDan - While I'm not 100% sure, I was thinking that we didn't have a plug between the first and second floors because we ran the camera down pretty far and didn't find anything but clear pipe and because I was able to put a very large amount of water down the drain when the toilet was pulled without water backing up in the line. When I'm testing the flush, it doesn't seem to get worse on the fifth or sixth flush which is what I was expecting if there is a partial clog and the water was backing up the pipe. We are also not observing gurgling.

StuckInLodi and Plumber Loren - I'm thinking you may be on to something. I may have a combination problem. There is probably something wrong or suboptimal with the geometry of the drain line that makes this toilet less flushable than the other toilets in the house. That, coupled with the low water volume/force of the higher efficiency toilets, may well be the problem. The drain hole size was the same on both the old and the new toilets and so was the flapper size – I just looked at the hole size on the toilet that is currently installed and it looks like a 2-inch hole. Following your logic of there isn’t enough water going down, I got out a bucket and filled it and then flushed the toilet and added the extra water from the bucket to the tank during the flush. I basically created a much bigger tank. The toilet flushed to a vortex. It didn’t go down as well as other toilets in the house, but it did consistently flush to a vortex. (I tried it about ten times.) This leads me to believe that changing the toilet again to one with a more powerful flush is worth trying. I looked up the American Standard toilets with the 4-inch hole and they were close in price to the pressure-assisted toilets. Right now, as my next step, I’m planning to buy a pressure-assisted toilet and see if it is strong enough to overcome the problem.

Thanks again!