I know this has been mentioned in passing, but I can add a bit of info. If you get a gurgling noise when you flush - it could come from a sink or tub as well - the air vent is partially clogged.
If you don’t mind scampering up on your roof, this is a very easy fix. Bring your garden hose up there and ‘snake’ the vent with the hose, as far down as you can go. I did this, felt the obstruction (leaves) way down below, and busted it up with the hose. Worked perfectly.
Only thing is, when I pulled my hose up it was covered in poo.
Our house has Kohler low flow toilets. We had the very same ones in our last house and they VERY rarely required a plunge or even a second flush. But, the stools on the second floor of our current house seem to need plunging quite often, one of them requires it probably 75% of the time. The one on the first floor and the one in the basement both flush like champs. I don’t know if being on the second floor could affect the water pressure enough to make a difference, but that’s the only thing I can come up with.
Not likely that water pressure has much to do with it. Most toilets aren’t flushed directly by the water pressure, but by the tank of water on the back of the toilet. Low water pressure just means that it takes longer for that tank to refill after flushing.
A more likely possibility is the vent piping for that upstairs toilet. If that is blocked, there will be problems flushing. And there are probably separate vent pipes for each toilet.
on the lower floors there is a lot of air in the vents that could be compressed before it would provide back pressure. on the second floor the air in the vent gets compressed rapidly. check for a restriction in that vent on the roof.
Sounds to me like the wax ring is improperly installed. If you don’t get it centered just right, it can partially block the pipe. Check that before you rip out all the plumbing.
The issue was not anything mentioned in this thread.
For some reason, the water level in the tank of those two toilets was too low. There’s a screw attached to the ballcock arm which controls the attachment angle, and by raising or lowering the angle, the water can be programmed to stop filling at different points.
Amazing that it’s been five years since I started this thread, and I never got around to doing anything more drastic. That’s a lot of plunging and snaking. But just as we were about to replace the toilets, I decided to stick a ruler in the toilets and measure the height of the water against the better-functioning one, and found both of the problematic ones to be about 20% lower (about 6" versus about 7 1/4"). Looked around and saw the screw, and viola - it’s been about a month without a clog in either one.
This is only tangentially related to the OP, but I promise you this is the thread winner:
The house we are renting was built in the (+/-) mid-70s. Last summer, after being in the house 2 years, we started having serious flushing problems–the bathtubs and sinks, too. Our landlords (super people, BTW) left no stone unturned (literally) in correcting the problem. First the handyman comes out to fix them; he does his thing, everything’s fine for a couple weeks. Starts up again. Snake Man comes out to plunge; he does his thing, everything’s fine for a couple weeks. Starts up yet again. Camera Man takes his shot at it; there’s an obstruction in the pipe that can’t be plunged/snaked and it’s right at the main junction leading out to the street, affecting every drain in the house. The solution:
Digger Team comes out to dig a man-sized hole/tunnel 20 feet under the house to get to the obstruction. They did an incredible job putting all the dirt, plants and lawn back in shape afterwards; big kudos to them.
The house drains just fine, now. (I left out several intermediary steps: inspectors, carpenter, Master plumber, US Senator, delegate from Sirius X, etc.). The consensus on the original problem was:
When the house was built, the first thing done was the underground plumbing (with the fixture pipes sticking up in the air). Then the slab was poured. During this process, some wank pounded a length of rebar (with deadly accuracy) right through the main junction fitting. Forty years later, enough dirt has sifted through the hole and piled up around the rebar that draining has almost halted.
The cost was halfway to five figures, but our landlords seemed very happy with getting the problem fixed. I sure hope their home owners insurance covered some of the repairs. I wouldn’t make book on it though.
The rose bush died–it stopped getting its hourly supply of…never mind.
This is a bit gross and may be totally off base for your situation, but will throw it out there anyway in case it’s of interest to anyone else.
Toilets used by someone with bulimia can get clogged regularly, especially if the person vomits very soon after eating, before much digestion has taken place. Unfortunately I know more than one family who dealt with this issue, in one case the constant toilet clogging serving as another “clue” when they already suspected an eating disorder in one of their daughters. I’ve also known maintenance people who talked about constant problems with the toilets in all-female dorms. Sometimes because of hygiene products, but often because of bulimia.
Wouldn’t it be easier, quicker and less yukki to call the plumber? When we had blocked drains he rocked up with a camera on a flexible snake and found a previous owner had got a small rubber duck stuck down there. It took 30 minutes and cost about $200, which was money well spent.
If you’re going to pull/replace a toilet, do yourself a favor: get at least two wax rings; if you’re a novice, get three. Plumbers with 20 years experience still futz-up the first replacement ring.
A brand new house with five bathrooms so this is annoying but not urgent.
My daughter accidentally flushed down a half bar of Ivory soap down the downstairs toilet.
I’ve read a number of remedies for this minor disaster online. Some say boiling water to dissolve the soap. I’m worried that this solution could crack the toilet. I went with the suggestion of purchasing some septic toilet cleaner to dissolve the soap. Not working so far.
Urination flushes only.
Any other suggestions other than having a plumber up who charges more than a Neurosurgeon.
My only addition to this thread is that pulling the toilet up is a fairly easy afternoon project … turn the water feed value off, unscrew, then undo the two nuts under the caps and lift up … you’ll need a new toilet donut when you go to place the toilet back down…
Sometimes something will go down and get hung in the toilet just as it passed down through the floor … this something might need to be pushed back up through the toilet and into the bowl for removal …
This happened to me once with a water value and another time by a whole box of Q-Tips … certainly not the first thing to check but it should be checked before you go and buy a new toilet …
It will dissolve … but not in days, perhaps not weeks … I would pull up the toilet and push the bar of soap back the other way … but I’ve done this far far more times than I care to admit right here … plus I have on-hand any and all parts that might need replaced, include the subfloor, all new underfloor plumbing, flanges and new bolts … with my old old buildings there’s always a risk pulling anything …
Pick a day and start early … any problems that crop up can usually be solved with a trip the hardware store … have a paper grocery sack handy to put the remains of the old donut … and have fun, tease the kids, chase them down the hallway with pieces of the old donut … “Here, squeeze this, does it feel like poop?”
