Off & On toilet blockage

I have a toilet on the mail floor of my house that becomes blocked more often than not. I bought a toilet snake a few moths ago and pulled a pencil out pretty easily. This seemed to fix the problem (for a short time anyway) but it still over fills and get blocked a lot. A guy at Lowes said that it may have something to do with the venting. (I didn't know toilets had vents). We bought the house about 1 1/2 years ago and the house is now about 6 1/2 years old. The basement is a full finished basement and the attic is very large (you can walk around up there and not worry about your head hitting anything).

Can you tell me what I should be looking for or do you have any suggestions?

Thanks,
Jeff

Sounds like the toilet is still plugged.........I don't think it's the vent. ( the toilet is on a vented line ).

If it were me, I'd bite the bullet, pull the toilet, and have a good look in the bowels (so to speak) of the toilet and the closet bend beneath. If you've already snaked out a pencil, God knows what other debris might have been tossed in there by whatever sinister force tossed the pencil.

When you say becomes "blocked", does the water rise in the bowl immediately and stay there, or does it start to drain normally and then slow down? That might be a clue as to where the blockage occurs.

toilet

How and when it backs up may be very important, but you can be sure it is not a vent problem. Toilets flush better without a vent, so you can eliminate that possibility, unless there is also a plugged sewer line involved.

I am not sure if this is relevant, but I cleared a blockage in my toilet by tapping with a rubber mallet on the side of the toilet bowel!

What happened is that the toilet would overflow every time we flush it. I thought at first its the septic and had to hire a pumping guy to clear it. It didn't solve the problem, neither would persistent effort with the snake wire.

Then I removed the toilet seat and had a good look at the hole below. It was clear. Then I thought it must be the u-bend in the toilet bowl. I used one of those rubber mallets used for fixing camping pegs and tapped on the side gently and the problem was somehow solved like a miracle! I guess it must have been some dirt and limescale that was attached on the inside lining of the bowel, which was creating a restriction when flushing.

is it an american standard toilet? if so some of them flush horribly and are prone to clogging. open your tank flush the toilet.. is all the water emptying out sometimes? if the tention on the flapper is loose it will be like a 1/2 flush


pour a couple 5 gal buckets down the toilet see how it flushes. sometimes things get stuck inside the toilet, that float up and cause clogs intermittently