(I think this is the second thread I have started in over 10 years!)
I have a house with 2 toilets and one of them is used much less than the other. The less used one is till used about once a day at least, but in a household of 2 adults and a child - all verrrry regular - that’s not much.
The less used toilet has a weird problem - the water that was clear in the bowl to begin with, would turn yellow after a few hours accompanied by bad smell. This, after a few hours of non-use and after the toilet has been scrubbed clean. And I mean scrubbed. A couple of hours of yellow water standing leads to a yellow stain in the bowl - that is easily scrubbed off.
But the smell and the yellow water is driving us nuts! Any suggestions?
Most likely you have a leak from the tank to the bowl. You can get a dye packet from the hardware store to test for this. You dye the water in the tank, come back in a few hours and if the water in the bowl has changed colors, there’s a leak. The other thing you could do is just shut the water off to the toilet, note the level in the bowl and see if it’s gone down after a couple of hours, but it could be pretty subtle. Do you ever hear that toilet randomly start running for a few seconds throughout the day?
It could also just be that it’s something in your water, but since it’s not used as often, you notice it where as in the other toilet it gets flushed away.
The last scenario I can think of, which is fairly unlikely is that it’s water coming back up from the drain. That would probably indicate a problem with your vent system. The only way I can think to test for that is to shut the water off, flush the toilet (so the water in the bowl is very low) and then come back in a few hours and see if it’s risen (in the bowl). But I doubt this is the case.
My money is on scenario 1, a leaky flapper valve. As for the discoloration, it’s probably just bringing some grime down with it.
Thanks Joey ! I have cleaned out the tank with CLR a couple of times to remove any old deposits. The water in the tank never smells. But I will check out all the scenarios you have mentioned.
BTW - I seems to have started a bunch of thread waaay back. Just not very memorable ones I suppose.
I just wrote out my theory on that, but I changed my mind. I wouldn’t worry about why it smells. Without knowing any more, I would check for leaks from the tank to the bowl. If that’s the case, it’s a very easy fix to replace the flapper valve.
The way I see it, you have two options. Go to Lowes/Home Depot and pick up a dye packet and flapper valve (return the flapper next time you’re there if you don’t need it, but save yourself the trip if you do) OR just assume that’s what it is and just get the flapper.
the water in the bowl, especially with the lid open, has a lot of contact with oxygen and had a vigorous bowl filling exposure to it. the water in the tank is exposed to less oxygen. the water in the more used toilet doesn’t sit for as long a time.
if this might be true you could test it by stop using the toilet and see if it happens to both. you could also switch which toilet gets used most and see if the newly less used one does the same thing.
We occaisionally find one of our spare bathrooms with the same condition that you described. We determined that our 4 year old was urinating in the bowl and not flushing, leaving the exact condition you described:
Are you standing over it and making sure that no one is pissing in it between inspections?
Bingo! Occam’s Razor has struck again. Yellow and smells? What could that be? Oh, there’s a kid in the house too. I don’t see why any leak from the tank would smell since that’s fresh water coming into the bowl.
What level of the house is the suspicious toilet in? If it’s on ground level, my money is on some sort of backwash from the waste line. There is no way that fresh water leaking from the tank would turn yellow in the bowl and leave a residue. IANAP so I don’t know what scenarios could cause that or how to fix, but something is getting in the bowl that is not coming in from the supply line.
The house is a single story one and so I am inclined towards the backwash theory. The question is what do I do about it.
I am pretty sure that it is not a leaky flapper - if I dump a pail of water the level goes down and stays down.
I am also sure there are no phantom urinators - I have a 2 and half yr old who is just about potty trained but cannot reach the toilet. The smell is also kinda different.
Have you ever dismantled a drain? Drains have a very specific smell. Specific enough that if it was that smell you’d probably recognize it. You could, I suppose, pull a trap off one of your sinks and smell that, but it might be over kill.
Here’s my quick suggestion.
Get a sharpie. Shut off the water to your toilet. Mark the level in your tank and let it sit overnight. In the morning (and longer if possible) check to see if it’s gone down. That’s still my bet. I’m still guessing there’s just muck and crap inside the rim of the toilet and a slow leak is bringing it down, but a full flush dilutes it enough that you don’t notice it.
I just can’t see it coming up from the drain without there being some other symptoms. If it was coming up from somewhere else, we could probably figure out when it happens. When someone else is taking a shower, using a certain bathroom or sink etc. It would likely be a clog in the drain system or a venting issue. But I would start with the cheap and easy fix…that’s going to be the flapper.
ETA, I just noticed the house is one story. IMO that actually makes it less likely that it’s coming up from the drain since there aren’t any drain lines running above it. But if you want to test it, I would go and turn on every water source in your house. Every sink, shower, every toilet (other then this one). The idea being that if there’s a problem with the drain system, we can try to overwhelm it in a controlled scenario and see what’s going on. If it starts backing up into the toilet, shut everything off and you’ll have to start snaking. But we can figure that out later.
Also, if you do this, keep an eye on floor drains and sink drains in the basement to make sure they aren’t backing up. Assuming they don’t, the problem will be somewhere between where the toilet connects to the main drain system and where the next drain downstream (that didn’t back up) connects. Whether or not you can reach it with the tools you have available to you will determine if you have to call in a plumber.
As far as the toilet is concerned, you can start by dropping a chlorine tablet in the tank. Those things like to eat rubber flappers over time so you might end up replacing them sooner but that’s one way of disinfecting the bowl.
I think snaking seems like a good idea. Because I will often see tiny waves in the water - I thought maybe it was draft from the AC or the vibrations from the compressor (that’s just outside in the yard).
I don’t know about septic systems so I can’t speak of them, but as for the other thing, I assume you meant “lowest house in town” but if that had anything to do with the problem, the OP should consider themself pretty damn lucky that the only symptom is a slightly yellow toilet every few hours. Those types of problems (and I’ve seen them before) tend to manifest themselves in the form of sewage backing up into basements.