The Daily Rave

[SiouzQ.]

How are you with toilets? Ours has stopped being able to flush all the way and we have to resort to filling up a bucket from the tub and pouring it into the toilet to get everything to go down. We've checked everything we can outside at the septic system, and have plunged it and snaked it out to no avail. It seems to be a problem just past the the 3ft reach of the short snake and before the first part of the septic tank just outside the outer wall.

I hate that at this point we might have to hire a plumber to figure it out...

[nswef]

I only do faucet washer replacement!!!! All the rest of plumbing scares me!!!

[nswef]

No expert on toilets, but ours is balky sometimes. We have 2 and if one is flushed , the other is slower...the well pump might be the difference. Also if you have a stack coming out of the roof you might run a hose down it to see if it has a clog.

[early morning]

Does it flush ok using the bucket? Seems that would indicate that a blockage on the outflow isn't the problem, or at least not all of the problem. The water inlet between the tank and the toilet bowl may be plugged/limed shut. If not enough water is getting into the bowl fast enough, it won't work properly.

[Alan]

Does it flush ok using the bucket? Seems that would indicate that a blockage on the outflow isn't the problem, or at least not all of the problem. The water inlet between the tank and the toilet bowl may be plugged/limed shut. If not enough water is getting into the bowl fast enough, it won't work properly.

My thoughts exactly! It takes a certain amount of water to force waste past the bowls trap. If adding a bucket of water clears the bowl, the first place I'd investigate is the tank.

[Rogar]

I might suggest taking off the lid to the tank to see if there is water coming through the flexible fill line into the tank and if it shuts off too early before filling the tank to the right level. I really dislike plumbing problems, but a fill valve kit and flapper are not that hard to replace and not very expensive. Another possibility would be to turn the shutoff valve off, disconnect the fill line from the tank, then turn the water back on to make sure there isn't a plug further upstream of the tank itself. My amateur guess of things. UTube is my friend for adjusting and/or replacing the fill valve kit.

But yes, the tank needs to fill to the appropriate level to clear the bowl and that's a place I'd look and easy to check if you haven't already.

[Klunick]

Shout out to my husband who got a tooth extracted yesterday and didn't act like a baby when he got home. We all know how men can act when they don't feel well. Like they are on their deathbeds. My husband was a big boy about the whole thing. I didn't even have to make him a special dinner last night. What we were having was soft enough that he could eat it without any complications.

[Tybee]

Shout out to my husband who got a tooth extracted yesterday and didn't act like a baby when he got home. We all know how men can act when they don't feel well. Like they are on their deathbeds. My husband was a big boy about the whole thing. I didn't even have to make him a special dinner last night. What we were having was soft enough that he could eat it without any complications.

I'm impressed he could eat anything! I had two broken teeth extracted recently and I think it was about 3 days before I could eat anything remotely dinnerish!

[Klunick]

I'm impressed he could eat anything! I had two broken teeth extracted recently and I think it was about 3 days before I could eat anything remotely dinnerish!

I was too, actually. Figured ice cream for dinner was on tap. He took some OTC pain meds and seemed to do the trick.

[SiouzQ.]

Our friend who does home maintenance repairs came over today to check out the toilet - we started ruling out all sorts of different scenarios and looked at some YouTube videos; it was ascertained that there was an incomplete clog somewhere between the toilet inside and the flush out pipe just outside the outer wall. In a house like ours (hand-built 25 years ago by a guy in his twenties who LOVED to use recycled materials), things like how he set up the plumbing can be pretty unorthodox. Other weird things like the vent pipe to the outside is pretty wonky with a 90-degree turn to go out the wall (instead of a straight shot up to the roof) that has no screen to prevent a bird from getting in there... Plus an entire new fancy complicated septic system was installed just before we bought the house makes diagnosing things not as straight forward as it would be in a suburban neighborhood.

Anyway, it cost us a whopping (ha!) $80, lol. I love employing our local handy people - getting a plumbing company out here would have cost a couple hundred dollars, I'm sure.