This was my first thought too
Tampons can be flushed. It says so on the box. (Not the plastic ones of course.)
Seriously, she needs to get a plunger. More than half my bowel movements need two flushes or a plunger. My dog, whose crap I have to clean up, needs a plunger.
The power-assist toilet is a great idea. Just be aware that they are noisy as hell compared to a standard toilet.
Another possibility is a Toto. I don’t know the particular model, but I replaced all the toilets in my house with them a few years ago, and we then stashed every plunger in the garage as those Totos just. would. not. clog. The ones they replaced would plug up with anything more solid than (spoilers for the squeamish)
diahrrea and two squares of Kleenex. and plunging was a daily occurrence.
yes they can.
they then can get snagged in the Y and riser and build up into a huge wad.
No…they…can’t.
Tampons are wads of fiber specifically designed to expand and absorb liquid. Toilet paper is designed to break apart once fully immersed in liquid. The only things that should be flushed are shit, piss and toilet paper.
Working with my brother the Master Plumber, I have re-plumbed houses from the point where the water enters a home to where the waste enters the city sewer. Every single pipe and joint. And to do so, I have cut apart cast iron pipes, replacing them, cutting concrete floors with a jackhammer, shoveling out gravel and clay and digging lead and oakum out from between the joints. And I can assure you, the interior of a cast iron pipe is rough and unforgiving, with millions of places for a fiber wad to catch upon.
So, unless the jackasses who wrote the copy on your tampon box are willing to come to your home and snake the drains, I think you can dismiss their opinions about the flushability of fiber wads as so much bullshit. I say this as someone who has pulled shit-impregnated tampons off the ends of a snake, which I can assure you, is every bit as pleasant as it sounds.
True, but not really noticeable in real-world use. When you flush a toilet, normally you are standing over it, and the bowl is functioning as a megaphone, so the noise is amplified for you. But outside of the bathroom? Not noticeable.
Toto does have an excellent water path, and my brother is quite fond of them for non-power toilets. But he’s going to go with a Powerflush every time.
Tampons do not break down and will snag on anything short of continuous line of PVC. We’ve had this discussion before. They survive all the way to the waste treatment plant (if you’re lucky).
What do you mean “not the plastic ones”? You mean applicators? Are you flushing cardboard applicators?!
Sorry, she’s well beyond the tampon years.
Where we’re at now is 1) courtesy (half way thru) flushes. 2) a good plunger 3) just leaving it in the toilet until it softens (she works, so this is not impossible) 4) trying to find a real not low flow toilet.
And the plumber is looking into power assist toilets, in terms of will one fit w/o tearing out the plumbing to the vanity (and the new tile work). It really is the teeniest bathroom I’ve ever seen.
Low flow toilets are not the problem. All the new ones I’ve installed flush like there’s a vacuum cleaner in the sewer line. If the vent line is clear and the sewer line is clear that leaves the flange area as one possible blockage or operator error.
Good point, and when/if it happens again, we’re going to camera the toilet line specifically.
Operator error? I was thinking more like some strange psychiatric syndrome where she likes pushing that crap down. She is a strange bird.
Word. My apartment had a toilet that would clog if you even thought about pooping. My current house? On the very rare occasion that it gets stopped up, just walking toward it with a plunger makes it change its mind. I am never leaving this house.
The upstairs toilet in my house has this exact problem…half the time it will flush normally under any load, and the other half of the time…it can take seven to ten flushes to clear the bowl. Paper goes down, but solid matter in any form doesn’t even get anywhere near the exit point. Since I don’t always have an extra half hour to endure repeated flushes, sometimes it has to wait until I get home from work. And then it still takes many attempts. Even if NO paper is involved (as an experiment) it still happens. The downstairs bathroom right below it has no such problems. But in this case, we know the main line needs to be cleared…the city just did a camera test. And we had an awful situation where the lid on the pipe outside in the flowerbed was off and all the waste from the house was splurting out into the flowerbed. The plumber cleared that line, but my poor brother had to clean up the flowerbed. I have no idea why the neighbors never told us…it was right outside their side door, but on the side of our house that we rarely access!
Perhaps you never had a sewage geyser when they were walking past, and since it was in a flowerbed, they may have thought the smell was just fertilizer. Or your neighbors are just so deep in their own world that they pay no attention to anything until it crosses their property line.
At least your main clean out is accessible. The one in this house is under the yard …somewhere… between the dining room and the street. When our main clogged a couple of months ago, the plumber was at least able to push the offending thing through the hypothetical running trap or back flow preventer without needing to dig.
FYI, the purpose of a vent is not to aid flushing. If it’s blocked everything should still flush through the system because there’s air available in the bathroom to prevent a vacuum. What a vent stack does (in relation to flushing) is provide air on the sewer side of the toilet so the P trap isn’t sucked empty and thus allowing sewer gas to enter the house. The stack serves other purposes such as venting sewer gas outside and it does add oxygen to the sewage process. My stack plugs up sometimes and I can tell because the toilet acts as a barometer and start to pull the water down as the weather changes. Cite.
Wet wipes (Tucks etc.) will also clog things up and will not break down. I was reminded of this recently when a certain household member (who never seems to remember that for “round one” of cleanup, one COULD always use a wad of regular TP dampened by the faucet that is within arms reach of the throne) went away for the weekend, leaving me with a mess that wouldn’t even PLUNGE to get clear… and it was clear that the Tucks were the problem.
As a side hint: a box of baking soda, followed by vinegar vvveeeerrryyyyy caaarrrreeeefullllyyyy poured into the bowl,was what ultimately resolved the clog.
Yeah, low-flow toilets these days aren’t the problem. The early ones were bad, until they realized they were going to have redesign the whole works, not just pour less water through.
We put a dual-flush in recently. 99% of the time, the “pee-only” flush will clear anything that’s in there.