Plumber119
New Member
Hello everyone - I have found myself on this amazing site so many times reading great advice so I feel like this time I went all out in messing up so I could ask my first question... which might be a few questions... I'll try to be brief but get the details covered:
Some facts:
1) I'm not good at plumbing but I like to learn
2) I'm very handy in general, but... (see number 1)
3) I did a bathroom remodel myself. It started as a "let's level this old floor" and became "let's replace everything"
3a) I love my wife.
4) Two major changes: tore out a 1 piece tub/shower combo, replaced with shower.
5) Replaced toilet flange and first 2' of plumbing under toilet (old one was essentially falling through floor)
Problems:
- first week - everything worked but shower drain gurgled when toilet was flushed... if we flushed it too much, we siphoned the p-trap and had to run the shower to refill.
- third week - toilet flushes poorly/occasionally -- no more gurgle from shower
What I think I Probably Did Wrong:
- the tub/shower was plumbed with a 1.5" drain into a drum trap, which then heads over and meets the toilet drain line, about 2' down the line from the toilet drain, via a 1.5"-3" wye on its side. A few more feet from that it meets main stack/vent (pardon my lack of proper terminology). There was never (and still is not) a dedicated vent. Not wanting to make even bigger changes, I also used 1.5" PVC for the new shower drain, but replaced drum trap with P-trap. I now think I might have made a mistake because a few inches after the P-trap I used a 12.5deg angle to drop the pipe down a bit before meeting it back into the original drain pipe. I feel like I've now learned that drains should never drop before reaching the vent or something like that? Moving on...
Possibly related annoying things:
- I also have one of those stupid Vormax toilets that needs to "prime" or some nonsense that makes troubleshooting stuff like this extra hard since it needs to flush 3 times before working properly anyway.
- I bought and filled an above ground pool during this time, wreaking havoc on all indoor plumbing for multiple days when I would steal all water pressure via a hydrant in my yard. As these symptoms changed I ignored them assuming this was the cause, but now everything's back to normal and the toilet still doesn't flush right
- we installed a Toto Washlet bidet seat on the super-toilet, which monkeys with the water a little as well, although turning it off hasn't changed any behavior (but we're SOOO clean and high tech!)
I've used a 4ish foot toilet auger... hit nothing. Snaked the shower drain just to be sure... also hit nothing... BUT... it did seem to make the toilet flush harder a couple times. Nothing is leaking, and the rest of the house works fine. This particular waste line is almost direct to the septic (everything else comes in above it) and they're all seemingly okay.
Any suggestions would be amazing! I'm not opposed to calling a plumber but I really do like to learn and so far this has been primarily an annoyance more than a real problem. I'm aware that I likely need better (actual) venting but it's also a particularly bad setup for getting new plumbing work in the old crawlspaces. I guess in addition to the almost guaranteed code violation suggestions, I'd really like to understand why this might have changed over time, why the old drum trap didn't have this problem, and any potential solutions.
Thank you all so much for taking the time!
Dave
Some facts:
1) I'm not good at plumbing but I like to learn
2) I'm very handy in general, but... (see number 1)
3) I did a bathroom remodel myself. It started as a "let's level this old floor" and became "let's replace everything"
3a) I love my wife.
4) Two major changes: tore out a 1 piece tub/shower combo, replaced with shower.
5) Replaced toilet flange and first 2' of plumbing under toilet (old one was essentially falling through floor)
Problems:
- first week - everything worked but shower drain gurgled when toilet was flushed... if we flushed it too much, we siphoned the p-trap and had to run the shower to refill.
- third week - toilet flushes poorly/occasionally -- no more gurgle from shower
What I think I Probably Did Wrong:
- the tub/shower was plumbed with a 1.5" drain into a drum trap, which then heads over and meets the toilet drain line, about 2' down the line from the toilet drain, via a 1.5"-3" wye on its side. A few more feet from that it meets main stack/vent (pardon my lack of proper terminology). There was never (and still is not) a dedicated vent. Not wanting to make even bigger changes, I also used 1.5" PVC for the new shower drain, but replaced drum trap with P-trap. I now think I might have made a mistake because a few inches after the P-trap I used a 12.5deg angle to drop the pipe down a bit before meeting it back into the original drain pipe. I feel like I've now learned that drains should never drop before reaching the vent or something like that? Moving on...
Possibly related annoying things:
- I also have one of those stupid Vormax toilets that needs to "prime" or some nonsense that makes troubleshooting stuff like this extra hard since it needs to flush 3 times before working properly anyway.
- I bought and filled an above ground pool during this time, wreaking havoc on all indoor plumbing for multiple days when I would steal all water pressure via a hydrant in my yard. As these symptoms changed I ignored them assuming this was the cause, but now everything's back to normal and the toilet still doesn't flush right
- we installed a Toto Washlet bidet seat on the super-toilet, which monkeys with the water a little as well, although turning it off hasn't changed any behavior (but we're SOOO clean and high tech!)
I've used a 4ish foot toilet auger... hit nothing. Snaked the shower drain just to be sure... also hit nothing... BUT... it did seem to make the toilet flush harder a couple times. Nothing is leaking, and the rest of the house works fine. This particular waste line is almost direct to the septic (everything else comes in above it) and they're all seemingly okay.
Any suggestions would be amazing! I'm not opposed to calling a plumber but I really do like to learn and so far this has been primarily an annoyance more than a real problem. I'm aware that I likely need better (actual) venting but it's also a particularly bad setup for getting new plumbing work in the old crawlspaces. I guess in addition to the almost guaranteed code violation suggestions, I'd really like to understand why this might have changed over time, why the old drum trap didn't have this problem, and any potential solutions.
Thank you all so much for taking the time!
Dave