i hate my toilet. (FYI- slightly gross)

[misschief]

yes.. you read that right.. i hate my toilet. i can't figure out why... but it is ALWAYS getting backed up, or clogged, or something. we just can't figure out why. we had a guy come and use one of those snake things to see if something was caught in there a month or so ago, and what he found was (thinking of how to put this...) ... a piece of human waste.. lovely, i know. but, it continually happens. at this point the toilet needs plunged every time it's flushed or it will overflow and i get to clean up the wonderful mess. does anyone know what to do about this? i think the toilet is made in a way that makes it clog.. but i'm not sure. i don't know anything about toilets or plumbing...... i used draino in a toilet once and the water literally exploded out of the toilet all over me and the room, so i won't be doing that again any time soon. *sigh* i really wonder if i need a new toilet.

[celestrialdragon]

my dad has a similar problem with his toliet, only its when it gets over uses. Anyhow. His main problem is his house is old, built with a big tree in the front yard, the tree roots are squeezing the main pipe for the water flow. So he has to call out the plumbers once ever 6 months or so to snake it. He refuses to give up the tree, and thats good, but its costing him an arm and a leg. So maybe there is something squeezing your pipes? or some major dammage to them? Hope this helpes.

[misschief]

hm... well i do have four boys, and then me and my hubby... maybe there's just too much 'stuff' going thru the pipes? but, regardless... none of us are going away, so i'll have to fix it somehow. i'm not sure, but i think our drains go to a big sewer, like.. for the whole city. i don't know really.. lol.. plumbing isn't my strong suit. :lol: we don't really have anything to squeeze the pipes, there are two somewhat large pine trees.. but they are way up in the front.

[Memory's Flame]

I wish I had some advice for you, but I'm more here for reading!! The single bathroom in our house has the same problem... and no one can find anything with it either! Anything that's truely the problem... only thing we can think is that the previous owner (who was also the contractor whent he house was built) did the plumbing himself and messed something up)

[Zoritsa_Nepenthe]

There is a product that can be found in hardware stores...called something like root away,root'b gone,or something to that effect.It is safe on plumbing and suposedly keeps the pipes free from debree.I also learned a tip from my neighbor who has the same problems with his house as I do mine(mostly tree roots),about a 1/2 cup of salt....the kind used to clear ice of pavements.

[ap Dafydd]

All sounds vaguely Harry Potterish to me...

But in the absence of someone from the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office, one possibility might be to consider what you're actually putting down it (not the human wastes, obviously), but whether there's anything else going down that's causing the problem.

I've had problems in the past that have stemmed from putting the wrong type of cat litter down or from putting vegetable matter, leaves and the like, down.

Another possibility might be the type of paper. We often get blockages in work because people try to flush bog roll centres or paper towels down.

Don't know if any of that helps at all, failing that there's always caustic soda!

gwyn eich byd

Ffred

[BrigidMoon]

yes.. you read that right.. i hate my toilet. i can't figure out why... but it is ALWAYS getting backed up, or clogged, or something. we just can't figure out why. we had a guy come and use one of those snake things to see if something was caught in there a month or so ago, and what he found was (thinking of how to put this...) ... a piece of human waste.. lovely, i know. but, it continually happens. at this point the toilet needs plunged every time it's flushed or it will overflow and i get to clean up the wonderful mess. does anyone know what to do about this? i think the toilet is made in a way that makes it clog.. but i'm not sure. i don't know anything about toilets or plumbing...... i used draino in a toilet once and the water literally exploded out of the toilet all over me and the room, so i won't be doing that again any time soon. *sigh* i really wonder if i need a new toilet.


Have you looked at Home Depot for a Kohler, Cimarron?

http://www.homedepot.com/prel80HDUS/EN_US/diy_main/pg_diy.jsp?CNTTYPE=PROD_META&MID=9876&com.broadvision.session.new=Yes&CNTKEY=misc%2fsearchResults.jsp


We're thinking of getting this one.

[morrigen]

Tree roots...everytime you get rid of them, they grow back..so you end up with blockages every 6 months or so.

See if you can find out if you have the "wrong" trees in your yard...some are way worse than others.

Then you'll either have to rip them out or get your loo seen to a few times a year. Also get your other plumbing checked incase they've attacked the pipes. :(

[Linx]

Just an FYI for all of you...

Here are some things you should NEVER flush down your commode.

Sanitary napkins
Diapers
Cat litter
Paper goods (except toilet tissue)
Food
You should really only flush tampons if you have to, otherwise they should be placed in a bag and disposed of.

There are many things that will flush down your commode. However this does not mean that you should flush them. Trust me, just cause those bedsheets, and underwear fit (don't ask), and will flush down, doesn't mean do it. Anything but human waste basically just assists in problems later. And even sometimes human waste can be a problem. As we age, generally our movements become larger (ever wonder why Uncle Harry takes so long in there?), and this means more material to be flushed.

There are several things that could be causing a commode to not flush properly. Some of those things are simple, and some are not. They include but are not limited to the following.

Too much toilet paper
Not enough water pressure
The mechanism in the tank of the commode not flushing properly
The commode itself being very old, and no longer able to flush right
Roots, or another foreign item in the pipes
A broken pipe ... Things will go down eventually... but they will be leaking out into the yard, and into soil, so they will take longer to drain. You will also be polluting the ground if this is the case. The only way to know if your pipe is broken, other than dig up the pipe, is to have a professional camera the line.
A clogged main line... yes this happens, and may not be bad enough at the time to clog up your entire home right away. If your only unclogging the commode, your only getting rid of part of the problem. Watch for things like the commode backing up into the tub. If you pour things like grease down your drains, or use a garbage disposal religiously (instead of now and then for scraps), If you flush every little thing like tissues, and cigarettes. All those things build up to eventually cause problems. And most all of those should be avoided especially if you are on a septic system. Those can be very costly to pump.

If your commode is not flushing right, or not flushing at all and is clogged, and snaking/auguring it, only seems to work for a little bit, that is because a snake/auger can only do so much. They only reach so far. They clean out what is IN the commode, and a short ways into the pipe, NOTHING more. You need someone to run a cable through the line. Those lines can and do extend farther than just a few feet. The length from the base of my commode to my main line is about 10 feet. If my commode is backing up, I try the auger first. If that does the trick so be it, but if it backs up again, a short time later, we look further into the problem. The fact is, your pipes are like a tree under your house, with the sinks commodes, tubs being branches of that tree.

Let's say your bathroom tub is draining slowly, and your commode takes a long time to flush. But hey the sink in the kitchen, and the other bathroom across the house work fine. Well, even if your main line is backed up, unless your running water into the sink in the kitchen for a long time, or several people are going to the restroom in succession in the bathroom across the house, You would probably never know your main line was backed up, or on it's way to being backed up. The reason for this, is that the water coming from the kitchen, and other bathroom, has further to travel, so it all drains out of the sink in the kitchen, and the commode, etc. in the other bathroom. It drains out of those items, and lingers in the pipes, until it finally slowly drains out and into the main sewer line. But see, the other items that are backing up are probably closer to tie into the main, and thus see the problem much faster. The problem does not lie within those items itself, but within the main line of the home. They are just closer, so they fell the brunt, where the other items do not.

I hope I am being helpful and making sense in trying to provide this information. I am married to a plumber who has been doing this for 15 years. He is fully licensed, in plumbing, back flow, and medical gas. I run his office for him a lot of the time, and pick up things quick, even stuff I don't really want to know. So yes, I come armed with information on plumbing :)

My suggestion to those of you who have commodes that have a problem of backing up a lot, is to look further, don't just look at the commode you see, and the direct pipe flowing from it. Look into having someone run your main line through. It can't hurt, and may save you the cost, and effort of having to replace a commode, or the costly nuisance of having to call a plumber out every time it backs up. A good plumber, if he is worth his salt, will be able to tell you off the bat if it is a problem with the commode or something else.

Oh, another thing I wanted to mention... Roots, all trees can do it. There are really not any that are necessarily worse then others. If you're having a problem with tree roots, you can fix the problem without having to remove the tree. A simple line repipe can fix that problem, by moving the pipe a distance from the tree. Sometimes it can be costly to do, other times not so bad. Your best bet is getting someone to give you an estimate, a lot of places (us included) will do that for free. You may find that rerouting that pipe at a certain cost, may be cheaper in the long run, then paying someone to come run your like every 4-6 mos. Heck, there have been times that we have been able to move someone's line for what it would have cost them to have us run their lines twice.

Good luck to all of your problems with the *john*. :)

[BrigidMoon]

That's great information. Just wanted to add that, Linx!

[vulfsung]

:woot: YAY! Linx, you about covered it! I was going to suggest having the line scoped-the little camera is sooo cool and you get to see in your lines, which, as gross as it sounds, really is something neat to see!-but you beat me to it....

[misschief]

hey thanks!:D
i'm wondering if it's a water pressure problem. my toilet is.. wimpy with the flushing. and for some reason it fills all the way up then starts getting the water out, i have no idea if i can change that. but, the filling up, and low pressure is most likely it i think. how do i make it have more pressure? is that even something one can do?....

[Kadynas]

<----- pictures LadyLeo's toilet exploding from Drano and laughs hysterically :rollingla

Sorry just got a vivid picture there... but try LimeAway... it was the only thing that took off our nasty rust/hard water stains... maybe it'll disintegrate other stuff on the way down the pipes! :lol:

[Scarlettvixen]

well when our cistern broke we used to flush with 1/2 a bucket of water..........

[misschief]

<----- pictures LadyLeo's toilet exploding from Drano and laughs hysterically :rollingla

Sorry just got a vivid picture there... but try LimeAway... it was the only thing that took off our nasty rust/hard water stains... maybe it'll disintegrate other stuff on the way down the pipes! :lol:i wish i still talked to the people i used to work with where that happened, when i came rushing around to the front with a bunch of dishtowels to sit on so i could drive home and shower they used our in-case-of-a-robbery camera and took a picture... lmao... they didn't allow me to touch the picture tho. wonder why?... oh maybe because i had dripping fecal matter from head to toe... that's probably it :lol:

[Linx]

hey thanks!:D
i'm wondering if it's a water pressure problem. my toilet is.. wimpy with the flushing. and for some reason it fills all the way up then starts getting the water out, i have no idea if i can change that. but, the filling up, and low pressure is most likely it i think. how do i make it have more pressure? is that even something one can do?....
Leo, if the water is leaking out of the tank once it fills up, I would look into someone replacing the guts inside the tank. Basically your commode is running. And if you pay for your water, this is COSTING you money! Not to mention wasting the water. That is something you really need to look into having fixed.

Another thing occured to me this morning. You can have something stuck in the commode, and not even know it. It could be obstructing the flow of the water to go down. Even if the commode has been augered or plunged, it could be lodged there, and you're not getting it out. If you tell all this info to a plumber, he will probably pull the commode, and see what is inside it, and there there is nothing there, he will run your line from where he pulled the commode.

But be sure to check on that running water too. I have seen something as simple as a running commode cost someone sometimes more than $30 extra on their water bill each month.

*** edited to add

I just reread your post, do you mean the bowl of the commode fills up when you flush before it starts to drain down? If that is the case, then I doubt it is a water pressure problem. Probably more of something being STUCK in the commode itself. Especially if everything else in the bathroom works fine.

Once our commode was glogged, we unclogged it, and well the next time someone went it drained as you are saying. The auger did not get what was in it out. Lloyd pulled the commode, and found a toothbrush in it (we had young children). The toothbrush, was blocking the large stuff like waste and toilet peper from going down, and making the water drain very slow. Plunging it just helps the stuff go down AROUND the item, but does not fix the entire problem. If your probelm is the one I posted after I edited, then you probably need to have someone pull the commode and look inside it.

[misschief]

yes... when you flush it, first it fills up with water... i mean FULL, to the top.. then the water drains out, but sometimes it just overflows. then i get furious and say a bunch of these words: %*!@.. lol. then, i plunge it, and plunge it, and plunge it... after a few minutes of that the water drains out and refills to the normal level. then you have to flush it AGAIN to get the water in the bowl to be clean instead of filled with whatever was just let out into it. and yes, the bowl is filling up like that.. not the back where the water comes from. the rest of the bathroom seems to be draining perfectly fine.

[enchancea]

We have problems with out toilet too. It was leaking for awhile but my mom who lives in the apartment under us has worse problems. She has to get her toilet taken care of a couple times a year because of tree roots. We have about 6-7 trees in our yard and they are all huge and sometimes you'll get roots coming up in the sink drains. Our house is also very old. Sometimes we have to plunge the bathtub so that the water will go down!

[Linx]

yes... when you flush it, first it fills up with water... i mean FULL, to the top.. then the water drains out, but sometimes it just overflows. then i get furious and say a bunch of these words: %*!@.. lol. then, i plunge it, and plunge it, and plunge it... after a few minutes of that the water drains out and refills to the normal level. then you have to flush it AGAIN to get the water in the bowl to be clean instead of filled with whatever was just let out into it. and yes, the bowl is filling up like that.. not the back where the water comes from. the rest of the bathroom seems to be draining perfectly fine.

Then you need to have it pulled and looked inside of. There is peobably something lodged in there. Good Luck!

[Jackiedanielz]

:huh: Wonders what LadyLeo could possibly have stuck in her pipes.

You must post an update & tell us what was in there :eyez: (yes, I have a sad, sad life if I find this my entertainment & something to look forward to laughing at later this week. :twitch: )

[ap Dafydd]

Another interesting little factoid that came out this week is that the kind of bog paper you use can also have an effect. The best stuff is the cheap stuff. The expensive luxury stuff takes around twice as long to break down. Things like kiddies wet wipes take more than 5 times as long.

gwyn eich byd

Ffred

[misschief]

ok it's fixed.. apparently it was q-tips which i yell at my husband about everytime i see it... and tampons.. :lol: *sigh* they were stuck way down in there where no one but a plumber can reach. kind of funny really.. the look on his face when he came out to tell me what it was :lol:

[Garnet]

I have the same problem in the upstairs toilet, but not in the downstairs one.