Hello all,
I am currently renting in a basement apartment and I have a gravity based toilet (with a Gerber pilot valve) on my hands that just won't quit. Eventually we will be getting out of this place for good, but we have not much choice but to sit tight for now. I'll have to give you a brief synopsis of our toilet troubles in the last couple of years.
Year 1
Problem 1 - Toilet is slow to flush and stops entirely on occasion.
Attempted solution - Landlord called 'handyman' (in my opinion not that handy - but who's counting?) and he came with a plunger several times and 'fixed' the problem.
Problem 2 - Sewage backed up into my bathtub (ew.)
Attempted solution - After 'handyman' failure, a real plumber was called, and he put a motorized snake out through the rusty cleanout (which had to be burnt open with a blow torch!) and solved the problem...temporarily.
Year 2
Problem 1 - Sink in kitchen will not drain, and soon after, neither will the toilet.
Attempted solution - Handyman again! And this time he brings his son. They push a manual snake through the clean-out under the sink and our cupboards and under the toilet, manage briefly to get it flushing, and then they leave...
Problem 2 - No plumbing working whatsoever...and I do believe we got more sewage in our tub...
Attempted solution - Professional plumbing company Mr. Rooter were called in and discovered that tree roots were screwing up the plumbing between the house and the street and that there was an incredible backlog from years of poor servicing. They dug up the front lawn (probably not necessary, but whatever works!) and replaced a length of pipe that was so stogged that the clog itself looked like a giant tampon...sorry for the crude reference but there really are no other words...things were ok for a while then.
Problem 3 - See Year 1, Problem 1. Except that we noticed the bathroom floor was getting soft also.
Attempted solution: Plumber called right away (that was my doing) and quickly suggested that the backwater valve had fallen into the pipe, and was causing occasional sluggishness due to tissue and waste build up. The problem was that there was no indication of where the valve was, and the plumber didn't have coverage for tearing up the floor. So, a different plumbing company was called in to first find the valve with a snake camera (and yes, the valve had fallen into the pipe), and then the handyman was called in to uncover and then reset the valve. Then it took about 3 months for the handyman to fix our floor which had, from the serious back up earlier this year, gone rotten from water that had leaked out from around the pipe at the backwater valve's access trap. All this being said, the plumbing troubles finally seemed to be fixed...
Problem 4 - See problem 1, year 1, except now with gurgling...
Ok, this is very annoying...and at this point I'm going to go into a bit more detail about the current situation...
Part 1 - Random flushing.
Sometimes the toilet flushes fine, other times it flushes slowly, and sometimes, not at all. It doesn't seem to matter what kind of waste is there, it's kind of random. When it happens, I usually turn off the water to the toilet, use a bucket to fill the toilet with hot water (which doesn't go down automatically on the first try - it never does) and then I plunge it and watch as it all slowly siphons out. Then I fill it back up again with hot water, and do the same. Sometimes I have to do this several times, but when I turn the water back on, it seems to be flushing fine again.
Part 2 - Slow siphoning and gurgling
Often now when we have trouble flushing the toilet is also gurgling quite a bit. When it gets in the habit of gurgling, it also tends to empty without a flush at all. It is a slow siphoning of the water through the trap, and then when we go to use the toilet again, it is almost empty, and so when we try to flush, more gurgling, and more often than not, no flush at all. At this point I attempt the solution I described in part 1.
Part 3 - Things I've tried or have been tried and eliminated.
-Cleaning the holes under the rim and the large jet at the bottom with a coat hanger, but they don't appear to be clogged, and so it doesn't help.
-Adjusting the Gerber pilot valve in the tank, which hasn't worked.
-When one of the plumbers came, he put a closet auger down and really rooted the toilet out...nothing was there. Since then, we have been extremely careful about what we flush down, so nothing really big can be clogging the toilet.
I am my wits end. My landlord does not live in town and I am sick of calling him over and over and getting plumbers here over and over again. I think the most frustrating part is that when plumbers come, they often don't see our issues, since the toilet will be a real ass (pardon the pun) and work perfectly while the plumber is here, so he can't observe the problem directly. Then, once the guy walks out, it slows up again. I want to cry (ok, that's a little dramatic, but still!)
The way I see it, it's one of three things:
1. The backwater valve has fallen again and needs to be reset (would explain intermittent flushing since it would require some time for enough refuse to build up and slow the flow...if this is the case then we probably will get a complete back up eventually if it isn't fixed.)
2. Mineral deposits in the trap of the toilet only (remember that the fill holes and the jet at the bottom of the toilet are working fine when it does flush).
3. Time for a new ******* toilet, period.
Any thoughts????? Thanks!
I am currently renting in a basement apartment and I have a gravity based toilet (with a Gerber pilot valve) on my hands that just won't quit. Eventually we will be getting out of this place for good, but we have not much choice but to sit tight for now. I'll have to give you a brief synopsis of our toilet troubles in the last couple of years.
Year 1
Problem 1 - Toilet is slow to flush and stops entirely on occasion.
Attempted solution - Landlord called 'handyman' (in my opinion not that handy - but who's counting?) and he came with a plunger several times and 'fixed' the problem.
Problem 2 - Sewage backed up into my bathtub (ew.)
Attempted solution - After 'handyman' failure, a real plumber was called, and he put a motorized snake out through the rusty cleanout (which had to be burnt open with a blow torch!) and solved the problem...temporarily.
Year 2
Problem 1 - Sink in kitchen will not drain, and soon after, neither will the toilet.
Attempted solution - Handyman again! And this time he brings his son. They push a manual snake through the clean-out under the sink and our cupboards and under the toilet, manage briefly to get it flushing, and then they leave...
Problem 2 - No plumbing working whatsoever...and I do believe we got more sewage in our tub...
Attempted solution - Professional plumbing company Mr. Rooter were called in and discovered that tree roots were screwing up the plumbing between the house and the street and that there was an incredible backlog from years of poor servicing. They dug up the front lawn (probably not necessary, but whatever works!) and replaced a length of pipe that was so stogged that the clog itself looked like a giant tampon...sorry for the crude reference but there really are no other words...things were ok for a while then.
Problem 3 - See Year 1, Problem 1. Except that we noticed the bathroom floor was getting soft also.
Attempted solution: Plumber called right away (that was my doing) and quickly suggested that the backwater valve had fallen into the pipe, and was causing occasional sluggishness due to tissue and waste build up. The problem was that there was no indication of where the valve was, and the plumber didn't have coverage for tearing up the floor. So, a different plumbing company was called in to first find the valve with a snake camera (and yes, the valve had fallen into the pipe), and then the handyman was called in to uncover and then reset the valve. Then it took about 3 months for the handyman to fix our floor which had, from the serious back up earlier this year, gone rotten from water that had leaked out from around the pipe at the backwater valve's access trap. All this being said, the plumbing troubles finally seemed to be fixed...
Problem 4 - See problem 1, year 1, except now with gurgling...
Ok, this is very annoying...and at this point I'm going to go into a bit more detail about the current situation...
Part 1 - Random flushing.
Sometimes the toilet flushes fine, other times it flushes slowly, and sometimes, not at all. It doesn't seem to matter what kind of waste is there, it's kind of random. When it happens, I usually turn off the water to the toilet, use a bucket to fill the toilet with hot water (which doesn't go down automatically on the first try - it never does) and then I plunge it and watch as it all slowly siphons out. Then I fill it back up again with hot water, and do the same. Sometimes I have to do this several times, but when I turn the water back on, it seems to be flushing fine again.
Part 2 - Slow siphoning and gurgling
Often now when we have trouble flushing the toilet is also gurgling quite a bit. When it gets in the habit of gurgling, it also tends to empty without a flush at all. It is a slow siphoning of the water through the trap, and then when we go to use the toilet again, it is almost empty, and so when we try to flush, more gurgling, and more often than not, no flush at all. At this point I attempt the solution I described in part 1.
Part 3 - Things I've tried or have been tried and eliminated.
-Cleaning the holes under the rim and the large jet at the bottom with a coat hanger, but they don't appear to be clogged, and so it doesn't help.
-Adjusting the Gerber pilot valve in the tank, which hasn't worked.
-When one of the plumbers came, he put a closet auger down and really rooted the toilet out...nothing was there. Since then, we have been extremely careful about what we flush down, so nothing really big can be clogging the toilet.
I am my wits end. My landlord does not live in town and I am sick of calling him over and over and getting plumbers here over and over again. I think the most frustrating part is that when plumbers come, they often don't see our issues, since the toilet will be a real ass (pardon the pun) and work perfectly while the plumber is here, so he can't observe the problem directly. Then, once the guy walks out, it slows up again. I want to cry (ok, that's a little dramatic, but still!)
The way I see it, it's one of three things:
1. The backwater valve has fallen again and needs to be reset (would explain intermittent flushing since it would require some time for enough refuse to build up and slow the flow...if this is the case then we probably will get a complete back up eventually if it isn't fixed.)
2. Mineral deposits in the trap of the toilet only (remember that the fill holes and the jet at the bottom of the toilet are working fine when it does flush).
3. Time for a new ******* toilet, period.
Any thoughts????? Thanks!
