Last month or so been noticing low water levels in both bathroom toilets. I've been up on the roof and hosed the vents. Not sure this has helped but water went through easy. Low levels are only sporadically present, sometimes one bathroom sometimes both.

Today, gurgling noise from toilet and water backing up in tub when sink used in other bathroom.

A couple of months ago, highly used shower blocked up and I plunged it. I think our problems started from there, I might have moved the clog into a shared pipe.

I do have access to sewer cleanout in the backyard. But I am unsure as how best to proceed. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Something to try if you have a partial blockage would be to run the garden hose water down that vent but be prepared to shut it off in case you get an overflow. This is only a patch approach....you should really snake out the pipes to remove or push the blockage to a larger waste pipe, 3 or 4". Good luck.

So I did try the garden hose in the vent, the last time this happened. But it did not seem to help. The water went down easy too. So I am wondering if the vent is really blocked

I do have a snake, would it be best to snake from the tub?

Thanks for your help!

The tub requires a very small snake like 1/4" so do not use a lot of force on it and you must enter at the overflow to get a straight shot to the trap. Try that first, then try a larger snake like 3/8" from a clean out if you can access one close to your tub. You must access upstream from the blockage. Also as a side note, most tub stoppages are caused by hair. With a wire with a small hook on it enter the mouth of the tub (inside below the overflow) and see if you can retrieve any hair from there. You usually can. If you have people with long hair this is an ongoing maintenance situation. Good luck.

You have a main drain restriction, not a tub drain. A larger snake/jetter and experience using it is required to correct your issue. The cleaning needs to be performed from a main cleanout or by removing a toilet and access the drain from the toilet flange.

Thanks for the replies, guys. This might turn out to be above my pay grade.

I do have a 1/4 inch snake that I will try cautiously this weekend. The difficulty is that the problem is sporadic, for instance for the past few days there has been no problem. No water in tub and no low levels. So I will not know if my efforts have worked until it happens again. So far its happened twice in about 3 months.

Some times stoppages are caused by an downstream neighbors sewer being plugged up. Check with your downstream neighbor to see if he is experiencing problems. And I do agree that a Jetter or Snake used by a plumber qualified to use these methods is a good idea. Hope you are successful with this problem.

if you have access to a main cleanout, remove the plug/cap to have a look inside the pipe.
if you see standing water that means something is likely partially plugged.

So just to update. I tried to snake this from various drains. Sink, tub and outside clearouts but failed to make any progress.

Threw in the towel and called a plumber. He tried to snake it from the tub. Worked for 30 minutes before giving up and then removed the toiled and snaked through there to finally clear this up. His thought was that the cast iron pipes are getting narrower with scale deposits.

Thanks all and much respect to Steve(CA) has it spot on.



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