I’m not a plumber, and I have no idea if I can explain this so I can get an answer…but here’s my attempt.
Tonight, my toilet (Norman) went berserk. I flushed, and everything went down the hole, like normal. Not clogged. However, instead of filling up the bowl completely, it didn’t fill up. The water level in the bowl is about 1/8 of what it usually is. The toilet is a 1.6 gallon/flush general use porcelin god. I clean it every week, talk to it so it doesn’t overflow (I have this fear of overflowing toilets), don’t put anything foreign down there (no feminine hygiene products, no bodies, etc). And I lifted up the lid on the back…and the water level in back was equal to the normal water line.
Also, during the actual flushing process, my pipes (maybe the drain, I don’t know) in my bathroom sink started to gurgle. Like they wanted to show me something, but it just wasn’t coming up. The sound goes away after the toilet finishes running. I can run water in the sink, but the sink makes angry noises at me. (Water is normal color coming out of the tap.)
My question is this–is something bad going to happen if I use my toilet? Will poowater explode from my bathroom sink? Will something gross happen? The only thing I know about toilets is that I’m afraid of them overflowing and I can use a plunger to unclog stuff. But this isn’t a clog and I don’t want the toilet to magically overflow out of my sink. If anyone, anyone can help…please please please help. I really have to pee and stuff and I’m scared of what may happen.
*important disclaimer–I’m in an apartment, already called the landlord about this. If this is something that needs to be fixed asap and can’t be fixed with a plunger or by me talking to the toilet (or by other means which are simple), then I have to wait for the landlord (typical wait of 3-5 days for things to be fixed).
Oh man, just wait until you go to take a shower in the morning and the water is other than clear! j/k
IANAP, but I’d go at it with a plunger. If that doesn’t work and you’re forced to wait a few days for a plumber, you might also try going to get yourself a pipe snake. In case you didn’t know, you can get those at a hardware store, not a pet store.
P.S. If you do the pipe snake, don’t tell the landlord.
No one else is hearing rumbling in their pipes, so it’s just Norman. Or maybe the forces of darkness have entered my bathroom.
Is it a bad sign that the rumbling noises have spread to the pipes in my kitchen sink?
For now, my solution is to hold it in or minimal flushing. (And hope to god I can take a freshwater shower tomorrow.) I’m going to give it a few plunges and see if that helps anything. Anything I can do to prevent an explosion of poowater in my bathroom would be very helpful. I would use the neighbors toilet, but being that my neighbor is Smelly Old Guy, that might not be the best idea.
I did find a much more instant-gratification, not-solving-any-real- problem solution. I called my parents and started crying about how my toilet isn’t working and could they please send some money. If I can’t use the commode without fear, then I’m going to get some money out of the deal.
No one else is hearing rumbling in their pipes, so it’s just Norman. Or maybe the forces of darkness have entered my bathroom.
Is it a bad sign that the rumbling noises have spread to the pipes in my kitchen sink?
For now, my solution is to hold it in or minimal flushing. (And hope to god I can take a freshwater shower tomorrow.) I’m going to give it a few plunges and see if that helps anything. Anything I can do to prevent an explosion of poowater in my bathroom would be very helpful. I would use the neighbors toilet, but being that my neighbor is Smelly Old Guy, that might not be the best idea.
I did find a much more instant-gratification, not-solving-any-real- problem solution. I called my parents and started crying about how my toilet isn’t working and could they please send some money. If I can’t use the commode without fear, then I’m going to get some money out of the deal.
It sounds to me like a partial clog or obstruction of some sort. Your john is flushing slowly, by the time all the dirty water makes it down the drain, the tank is nearly full, and the valve shuts off. This means that there is little time for your bowl to fill back up.
Let me elaborate, when the john flushes correctly, the dirty water goes down right quick. Then, as the tank is filling, there is also water being sent to the bowl to fill it up to an acceptable level. If it flushes slowly, all the dirty water (mixed with some of the clean water now) goes down, but there is no time for the bowl to fill back up. That’s why it’s empty.
The clog is also why the sink is making gurgling sounds, that’s the drain struggling to let the water through. It doesn’t sound critical yet, but I’d start doing #2 at the office…
If you want the water level back to normal, pour some water in there from a pitcher, just don’t dump in a ton all at once, that will induce a flushing action.
The toilet and sinks all have a water trap of some sort - usually some sort of U-bend.
Normall the air pressure on both sides of the trap will be equal and water in the trap will never be lower than the level at which water will ‘spill’ out of the lower sewer side.
However, if the air pressure on the sewer side falls, water will be sucked out of the trap utill air can bubble through to balence the pressure. That is what makes a gurgling sound and leaves the traps less than half full of water.
When you flush the toilet a lot of water falls down the pipe all in one go - it is enough to act like a close fitting piston. This piston of water pushes air ahead of it and pulls air behind it. Normally a sewer pipe will be vented to the air by a suitably high pipe reaching well above the hight of the highest bathroom. If this vent is blocked in some way, there will be nowere for the air to go and the air pressure in the system will change when the toilet is flushed resulting in the kind of symptoms reported.
So, your system may be blocked, but you may need to look up for a birds nest or somesuch problem rather than down for a blocked sewer.
If this is the problem, no amount of plunging will do any good.
Thanks a lot for the answers–and so quickly too. Either way–clog or backup–sounds incredibly bad. Both seem to have possible consequences of poowater explosions. I’ve called the landlord, and am waiting for him to come and look at my toilet.
I did try plunging, but that didn’t do anything. So if it is a clog, its waaaaay down in there.
I have found a toilet to use in the meantime. I discovered it by accident. In the back of the apartment building, there is a stairwell leading to a hall and outside. In the hall, there is a door. I always thought it was a closet, but this morning when I was taking out the garbage it stunk. So I opened the door, and there was a toilet and a sink (I think someone used it recently). But it’s clean, it’s in the building, and it’s unlocked. Beats driving 10 miles in the middle of the night to the nearest 24 hour convenience store to pee.
The fact that flushing produces gurgling in sinks suggests that, as G. Cornelius said, that the stack vent is blocked. A plunger won’t fix that you, or your landlord, need to climb onto the roof and flush it out.
I, too, agree with G. Cornelius and Squink, but there should be others having problems. Depending on how your apartment building was plumbed your next door neighbors might have their own vent, but the people directly above and below you might have the same problem as you.
Using a pipe build-up remover might not be a bad idea whether it is related to the problem or not. Soap residue, food residue and whatnot can slowly build up on the inside of drain pipes and slowly make the usable opening smaller and smaller. The build-up remover should help make the drains open up to work faster and help remove constricted areas that might catch something later that will cause a clog.
Also, you don’t have to worry about any of your flushed material coming through the faucets or showerhead. Some plumbing problems could push something up another drain, but since toilets are usually running straight into the stack while sinks and tubs/showers have to make a longer run to reach the stack they are the ones that are more likely to affect each other (unless your building has a MASSIVE plumbing problem).
If I can’t use the commode without fear, then I’m going to get some money out of the deal.