We have 3 toilets in our condo and they are all crappy. (couldn’t resist ) 2 are upstairs, and 1 is downstairs.
The toilets are identical (Universal Rundle, I believe) and are the originally installed ones from about 20 years ago.
Here’s the problem. And I can’t describe it without getting somewhat TMI, so here it goes. The toilets work fine for urine. But when you dump a load, they usually get clogged. With just a little plunging the toilet will flush clear again.
To avoid this, I’ve gotten in the habit of (TMI) dumping part of a load and flushing immediately. Finish dumping, then do the paper, and flush again. This method usually prevents a clog. However, a full load with paper will clog it just about every time. But if this happens, a couple of plunges will unclog it. It’s been this way for years, and hasn’t seemed to get any worse (or better).
I’ve always assumed this is a problem with the toilets, not the drains but someone recently suggested it could be the drain pipes.
My rationale for blaming the toilets themselves: They work normally for “non-load” flushes. The toilets both upstairs and down have the same behavior. Just a little bit of plunging will unclog them (as if the load is stuck in the toilet itself). Our sink and shower drains work fine.
Can anyone come up with a likely argument that would cause the drains to be the problem?
Bonus question: we’re going to be remodeling the bathrooms soon. Do you have a recommendation for a good, not-too-expensive replacement toilet that reliably flushes well?
I don’t know if drains could be it. I suppose so. But another thing to check is whether the tanks are too small - especially if somebody lined them with insulation (typically styrofoam) to keep water from condensing on the outside, or put bricks in them to reduce water consumption.
I suffered with 60’s era toilets in our home (with the big tanks) for years. Then one of the tanks cracked quite audibly while we were chatting in another room …
crack . . . drip…drip…drip…drip
I went to Home Depot and bought one of those American Standard Champion toilets (the one that can flush 20 golf balls in a single flush) and never looked back.
Even with a much lower quantity of water, modern toilets have a neat way of throwing all of that water down at high enough velocity that I have never had a double flush needed.
The next time I replaced a toilet, it was with a Champion.
I’m not sure if your problem is downstream, but I imagine that you wouldn’t notice the immediate effect (rising water) if the clog were anywhere but the gooseneck or the wax ring. Imagine that the clog were a foot down below the toilet: the clogged area would be “dry” at the time you flushed, so the water probably wouldn’t back up all the way to the bowl. It’s probably your toilets.
I gave up on American Standard. They worked fine about 75% of the time, but a few serious loads a year forced me to go down to the basement for the plunger.
When we renovated our powder room in the new house, I decided I was going for the mac daddy of commodes. I didn’t spend anywhere near what I could have, but got a Jacuzzi Espree High Efficiency and have never looked back. That thing can take whatever I can dish out, and I’ve really tested it, trust me. It’s the best toilet I ever had and what I’m going to replace my other two with when we get around to renovating those bathrooms. I think it was about $175 at Lowes.
All of the toilets flush this way? I would stage an experiment by replacing one of them with a current model.
When ‘low-flow’ toilets first came out (about 20 years back if you recall) they were terrible. We had one in our upstairs bath and we just didn’t shit up there because it would take multiple flushes to get it down even if it didn’t clog up.
Then we got a new toilet that uses even less water (as recommended by the guy who sold it to us) and that thing can take anything down.
I recently renovated our bathroom and replaced the toilet. The exit of the toilet into the stack was built up with lime deposits from our hard water. The deposits were very rough and could slow down the solids and frequently caused backups.
We put in an American Standard Cadet II and are pleased with it. Occasionally it gets blocked, but the cause is slow plumbing in the depositor.
We had the same problem with a Jameco low-flow toilet. We replaced it with a Kohler Wellworth* toilet. We have yet to put anything biological into it that it can’t flush (I admit, we haven’t tried ping-pong balls). I highly recommend it.
*I believe it’s the Wellworth - it’s the inexpensive 1.6 gallon per flush model that Home Depot sells as the “toilet in a box”.
How much TP do you use, if I might ask? The reason for my question is that my husband and I have no problem with our toilets, but we both use the bidet attachment and use a tiny bit of TP to dry off with afterward. My son won’t use the bidet (don’t ask me why) and he clogs the toilet ALL the FRIGGIN TIME. We’ve tried to reason with him…
At 20 years old, they *might) be early “low-flow” toilets; our old house (built 1988) had real toilets, our new house (built 1995) has the, er, crappy low-flow ones.
As such: we keep plungers in every bathroom of the house. It’s not, as far as we can tell, a pipe problem, just a toilet problem. The things simply can’t handle hard work.
Often, if they fail to flush completely, we can get by with lettings sit for a minute or three then trying the flush again.
Anyway, while that doesn’t help your quest for a better model, it’s just an agreement with your theory that the toilets themselves are probably the culprits.
Many years ago I rented a house that had a poorly-plumbed toilet. The drainage pipe had too long of a horizontal span, so it clogged and backed up easily. A plumber told me to use Scott toilet paper, or any other TP designed to work in septic tanks or RVs, because they break down faster and in smaller shreds. I’ve used it ever since. A current friend of mine has a septic tank and confirms this, it’s the only brand they will use.
Since both volume and the amount of TP used is greater after a dump, choosing your TP wisely might help. At least until you get the remodel done.
I know you mentioned it in the OP, but I think it should be standard practice when using any toilet you’re not intimately familiar with: poop, then flush (or poop partway then flush if it’s a really big poop) then wipe (with the bowl containing just water) then flush again. That way if the TP clogs the toilet (and IME it’s usually the TP not the poop itself–well, technically it’s probably the combination of the two) all you’re plunging is water and TP, not a soupy, poopy mess.
When we bought our house a few years back, the county had a free toilet swap program. We got three new Toto toilets and never had a problem with them, regardless of what I may have eaten or how much TP was used.
OpalCat’s suggestion of the multi-phase flushing is a good one, especially if there’s a plunger in the bathroom, as that’s a really big clue that the toilet clogs easily.
(bolding mine) Good call. Though we have plungers in every bathroom just in case, it can definitely be an indicator of a problem toilet! If you see one, practice the multi-phase flush (I like that term!)
) 2 are upstairs, and 1 is downstairs.