toilet always clog

[mark charon]

hello, ever since we moved into this house, our toilet (low flow) seems to clog every so often. this toilet was purchased probably for around 100 dollars 3-4 years ago. (ive' never tried using the pluger.)

sometimes i have to use a 6ft snake to clear it but most times a 3 ft snake will clear it just fine.

when it does clog, usually we still can flush but the flush is slow and weak.

we tried different brands of toilet paper but with same result.

my sister lives in a house built in 1990. she also has this problem. in her case, she uses the pluger and then it works fine.

someone suggested that previous owner may have some toys that got accidentally flushed down. does this sound like it??

how do you solve this problem?

will replacing to a better toilet fix this problem??

thank you in advance...

[Alan]

Some low flow toilets give only a minimal flush unless you hold the handle down and tend to clog if there is much to flush away if you only flick the handle. Some of the original low flow toilets did not work as well as the ones available now.

[mark Ransley]

Consumer reports rated them, see where yours is rated, and go from there.

[jim]

we have a house we built in 1972, had two of the old stile toilets, never any problem.. well the tank on one broke and we had to replace it with a 1.6 gal low flow toilet..... keep a plunger by it all the time... tried different papers, no help.... last week it would not work even with a plunger. seemed cloged pretty good... i tried to use an auger and it did not work any better... could not get the auger to go down into the toilet... i removed the whole thing and took it into the back yard thinking i was gonna find a small bottle of whatever the kids have sitting on one of those multi shelves over the toilet...... found out it was two Q-tips with about a 6 in. piece of duct tape behind it and the rest was paper packed all the way to the bottom hole... it was so packed i could not get this 6 ft. auger down there to move anything(just testing it to see if it would work)... i had to use some long needle nose pliers and a garden hose..... from experience if this same thing was in the older full flow toilet it would never had happened...... also i found out after one week of the new toilet (american standard cadet) that there is a small float that goes onto a chain that pulls up the flapper valve, you have to move the float all the way down so when you flush the float will hold the flapper valve open long enough to let more water go into the bowl from the tank to give you a better flush.. hope this helps.

[Joseph Meehan]

To add to Alan's comments, not all of today's are as good as others. Also there may be something stuck somewhere that is causing the problem.

[Bob]

seems to

I have an old, large volume toilet with the same problem. I have found that after a big "dump", flushing the toilet before using the T.P. prevents the problem.

Bob

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, Vent stack in good shape? Tony

>

[Art Begun]

Get yourself a Gerber or Kohler pressure flush toilet with a Sloan valve and you will not have any more toilet problems. About $200.

[Me]

isn't a pressure flush toilet REALLY noisy?

[Art Begun]

Just got 2 Gerbers for my parents townhome and they are quiet. My 7 year old Kohlers are noisy. They both use the same Sloan valve. Don't know if Sloan found a way to make the pressure valve quiet or if Gerber figured out how to make the toilet quiet using the valve.

If buying now I would probably get the Gerber since I know how their latest models work. Kohler may have quieted theirs down but I would have to see the new one work before buying it.

They both flush great though.

[DES]

I just bought a new toilet, but while I was shopping I found out that some of the lower end seats are not glazed all the way down the flush hole. If you have one of these tolets, you are more likely to have flushing problems, more so on the low flows.

The tolet I bought was about $350 can. and I have been using it for over a year now, no problems what so ever.

JT

[Ray]

... you could try leaving a knife or axe near the toilet to hack the logs into something more digestable by your toilet.

[MLD]

[Art Begun]

Pressure or gravity?

[MLD]

Gravity