I have 2 toilets where the bowls are 3/4 full of water. When flushing they either flush very very slowly or don't flush at all and you must reflush.
I get scared every time I flush as the water rises so close to over flowing.
Is there away of adjusting the water in the bowl to lower the level of water? Maybe there both clogged?
Could be they're both clogged, yes. But the following are much more likely:
- a clog in a pipe that both toilets share, either inside or outside the house
- if the two toilets share the same vent stack, the vent may be clogged
- if you're on a septic system, your tank is full and needs to be pumped (and you probably have other problems as well).
Need more information to give you a better answer: Are you on a septic system, or a municipal sewer? Did the problems appear at about the same time on the two toilets? Where are the two toilets, in relation to each other? Do you have small children? If so, are you missing anything? (Around age 2 or
3, a lot of kids think it's fun to flush stuff down the toilet, to watch it disappear.)
Most fill valves are adjustable; without seeing yours it is hard to be more specific.
However, if you lower the level it will flush even worse, since it is the volume of water in the bowl that flushes it. Best to find out why it is flushing poorly. Could have a clog, a blocked vent, or just a really really poor toilet.
Apartment = simple solution: tell the landlord the toilets need to be fixed.
It's not your property, and therefore it isn't your problem; in fact, your lease probably prohibits you from performing any repairs on the property (since it isn't yours). It's up to the landlord to fix it.
And thus probably share a common drain, and a common vent, either of which could be plugged. But, as noted above, that's the landlord's responsibility, not yours.
You have a partial clog in your line. If it were total, it would just go all over the floor. It should never rise that high unless you just flushed a REALLY BIG load, and then, it would go right down, and on the next flush, it wouldn't be that high.
Just a thought. I snaked the crap out of one once. It kept raising, Finally pulled the thing and it had a bar of soap in it. The soap defies all snaking sometimes. And it will spin allowing some of the water to escape.
You been watching over my shoulder? A month or so ago, I was asked to look at the two toilets in a rental condo. The tenant said they both flushed slowly and he was concerned. The condo association plumber had been out and said that the problem was in the toilets rather than the common piping.
It turns out the tenant was wrong, and it wasn't both toilets that had a problem, just the one (they were separated by about 30 feet), and there was nothing wrong with the common drains, there was a model of the space shuttle that had gotten stuck in the throat of the toilet. TP would get caught on it and cause the toilet to back up, but just water would flush ok.
The only odd thing was that the owner's grandson hadn't lived there for four years and no kids since then. It seemed unlikely to me that the blockage wouldn't have been noticed before now. In fact, I'd worked in the unit during the past 2 years and had used the toilet with no problems that I remember. Odd, that.
I'd suggest go the hardware store, plumbing department. Ask for a "closet auger". They should have a cheap one about $10 and an expensive one about $25 and an indestructo on eabout $50.
Buy the cheap one, ask the clerk to give you an idea how to use it. Bring it home, snake out your toilet, and let us know if that helps.
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