Just stopping by to sing the praises of the American Standard “Champion” series.
We used to have a sixties-era toilet in our main bathroom that always needed a quick pitcherful of water tossed in at flush time to help things along. When the tank cracked, I replaced the toilet with a Champion. It has never clogged. There is never a need to flush twice. And it does this by artfully using the three teaspoonfulls of water that are allowed in modern toilets.
Last year I redid our half bath. I put a Champion in it.
This is the toilet that they advertise by flushing 20 or so golf balls in one go.
ETA: They have small, medium, and large hole sizes. Don’t know why anyone would ever buy anything but the biggest.
We’ve had lots of clogs, but only one was from something in the toilet. “Oh, that’s where those missing car keys went” said my wife. But if you take the toilet off, you’ll soon see if there are any clogs in it.
All the other times it has been roots or other stuff clogging up the sewer pipe. The toilet in the master bath is further from the street than the others, which is an indicator. After one time of calling a plumber with not so good results, we now use the trap at the side and front of the house, rent an electric snake, and clean it out ourselves, always with excellent results. It costs something like $60, and you don’t have to wait for the plumber.
It is one of the more useful house skills I’ve learned.
You explained this better that I did in my post above. The vent that draws air in is a part of the system that often gets over looked. When the flush stuff is going down the pipe the vent must be clear so that air can be drawn in, or you create a suction that stops the flow.
If you keep having the same problem, and you have snaked the pipes several times already, make sure the vent is clear before looking for a larger problem.
Another thing to check for is dental floss. The plumbers I’ve spoken to have said the dental floss will, over time, accumulate and cause a really nasty clog that you have to take the toilet off to clear.
Anyone flushing dental floss in the problem toilets?
Is the electric snake easy to control? I have a recurring problem, and I’ve considered it, but I have a mental image of it bucking in my hands like a jackhammer and shattering my old pipes as it flailed.
an electric one can be hard to control for someone not experienced with it. an electric one can also easily mar plumbing fixtures especially toilets. electric ones work OK going straight into drain pipes or cleanouts. a closet snake(auger) is made to protect toilets, it has a curved tube the snake travels in to make it into the toilet hole, so it doesn’t scratch the bowl.
If your problem can be accessed by running the electric snake through a cleanout, that is the best way. Also be aware that those electric snakes you can rent are HEAVY. The consumer grade units can work fine, and weigh in at about 50 - 75 lbs. The commercial grade units you get at the home improvement store can weigh 100 - 150lbs, so just getting it in and out of the car can be fun.
The most likely cause is an obstruction such as a toothbrush, pen, Q-Tip stuck in either the trap on the toilet or in the drain pipe. Solid matter, paper products, etc. snag and/or wrap around it causing the blockage. Whenever you plunge or snake you clean off the debris but will it build back up after several uses.
You’ll have to lift the toilet and check the trap and snake from there.
A word of caution, plunging can force a blockage either up into the air vent or past it which will be more difficult to remedy.
It does take a bit of practice. Once in the pipes it is fine, but if you leave too much slack it could take off an arm. My neighbor showed me how to use it. It has a footpad for control, so you need to be coordinated enough to take your foot off the pad if it starts shaking. And always work in pairs.
However, I’m not particularly coordinated but I can use it with no problems, and it is very satisfying to do it yourself.
I’d never use the electric one inside. First we use a plunger and a normal snake, and only get the electric one after that no longer works. Our problem is between the house and the street, mostly, so some sort of power snake is absolutely necessary.
And remember, that if you do this you will have to replace the wax seal between toilet and floor. The good news is that wax seals are about the cheapest things sold in hardware stores.
Thanks; this is interesting. My problem area is not a toilet but rather the drainage where my kitchen and laundry room sink pipes run off under the house. There is an easy access point, so my only fear is cracking a pipe in an inaccessible area underneath the house.
Here is a picture of an electric snake. (Click on the picture to enlarge). The way I think it works is that the claw at the end expands to fill the pipe and to scrape out the gunk all through it. It thus doesn’t have enough play to break it under normal circumstances. if you have a big root in your line, then I can see it bouncing off and making things worse, but then you already have problems. The cable doesn’t have enough play to do much damage. The danger outside is not so much the cable hitting you, but having an arm or something caught in the middle of cable coiling up. You actually push the cable in (with gloves) so it isn’t even turning on the outside.
Even when my situation was so bad that the shower backed up (don’t even think about this :eek: ) the sink drained. The difference in distance from the street might mask a sewer problem. The Rooter people attacked the toilet by itself, and so never fixed the problem. Another toilet, closer to the street, also never backed up.
Any time a sink has backed up for us, it was purely local and could be fixed with Draino.
Seconded. I’d say whenever you pull a toilet always replace the wax seal. And clean the surface on the underside of the toilet that meets the wax seal. Remember, this the the only thing between what is coming out of the toilet and your floor - and the ceiling below.
If you replace the toilet, look into the Toto EcoDrake. It’s a 1.6 gallon but it works fantastically. Look on the web and you’ll see everyone raving about it. My Toto has been in for a year and has only clogged twice. The Toto replaced a traditional 4 gallon model that seemed to clog about once a week.
Another excellent toilet is the Gerber PowerFlush, but I don’t think you can buy them in stores - they are only installed by professional plumbers. But the flush mechanism is built by Sloan and they supply their mechanism to a number of toilet manufacturers. The one I use in my KC apartment has two levels of water usage - .9 gallons for pee, 1.6 gallons for poop. And the .9 gal settings is usually more than enough for most bowel movements.