CountryBoy19
Member
First of all, I noticed a couple weeks ago our toilet in the master bath was draining slow. The water will rise in the bowl, swirl around, but never develop the siphon to suck the water level back down, it would just slowly drain back down to neutral level.
Toilet is a 1992 Gerber, not a low volume that I can tell but the markings are too faint to read clearly and i can't see GPF anywhere on it. I have already pulled the toilet and verified the ports around the rim are clear and the drain neck is clear.
When flushing another toilet I can hear it clearly in the drain pipe and there are no signs the drain is obstructed. The septic tank was pumped last year. It gets pumped routinely and was not pumped bc i was having problems or anything like that.
I suspected a vent problem and at this point everything points to a vent problem but I just don't know for sure and I'm not sure how to diagnose it. Shop vac on the roof of the house to see if I can suck air?
Circumstantial evidence: the vent stack is a variety of 1.5-2" pvc except the roof penetration necks up to 3". There is no external cap (should there be?). There is only a single vent penetration, everything is tied together in the attic then vents through the single roof stack. The vent system has 2 primary branches, #1 serves the master bath toilet and sink, #2 goes on to serve the rest of the house. Starlings have been nesting in our area, they love to nest in downspouts, pipes, etc and routinely get into my wood stove chimney and downspouts, fall down, and can't get back out. I suspect a starling may have entered the open end of the 3" vent stack, fallen down to the split, and chose to die in the branch that serves the master toilet and sink. What do I do now?
ETA, any work done in the attic will be a pain bc I have 24" of blown insulation in there which covers all of the vent system except the stack going up and out the roof.
Toilet is a 1992 Gerber, not a low volume that I can tell but the markings are too faint to read clearly and i can't see GPF anywhere on it. I have already pulled the toilet and verified the ports around the rim are clear and the drain neck is clear.
When flushing another toilet I can hear it clearly in the drain pipe and there are no signs the drain is obstructed. The septic tank was pumped last year. It gets pumped routinely and was not pumped bc i was having problems or anything like that.
I suspected a vent problem and at this point everything points to a vent problem but I just don't know for sure and I'm not sure how to diagnose it. Shop vac on the roof of the house to see if I can suck air?
Circumstantial evidence: the vent stack is a variety of 1.5-2" pvc except the roof penetration necks up to 3". There is no external cap (should there be?). There is only a single vent penetration, everything is tied together in the attic then vents through the single roof stack. The vent system has 2 primary branches, #1 serves the master bath toilet and sink, #2 goes on to serve the rest of the house. Starlings have been nesting in our area, they love to nest in downspouts, pipes, etc and routinely get into my wood stove chimney and downspouts, fall down, and can't get back out. I suspect a starling may have entered the open end of the 3" vent stack, fallen down to the split, and chose to die in the branch that serves the master toilet and sink. What do I do now?
ETA, any work done in the attic will be a pain bc I have 24" of blown insulation in there which covers all of the vent system except the stack going up and out the roof.
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