Toilet clogs repeatedly...

[TKM]

The same symptoms came with a house we bought a few years ago. Turned out that the house had a septic tank (in the middle of a residential community with sewers). We pumped out the septic tank; but improvement was only brief. Finally I found a sewer contractor who understood sewer lines. He found that the pitch of the line from the house to the septic tank was less than it should be (line was too level) and that caused slow flow and frequent clogs.

It's relatively easy, of course, to snake the lines and the vent pipe; so check those out thoroughly. I don't see how a new toilet will make anything better, however, if the problem is in the pipes somewhere.

TKM

[hallerb]

DID THE OP PUT ACID DOWN THE DIP TUBE? Its the pipe standing up in the tank with a small water line running to it.....

pouring acid just in the tank will accomplish nothing the bowl rim interior passages are what clogs.

if you flush every time with a bucket does the trouble disappear?

if so the interior passages are clogged.

while you had the toilet removed did you try dumping buckets of water down the open drain line?

thats a important test to know if the problem is down stream

[tnom]

I had a toilet a few years ago that had similar problems.

In the end it turned out that my teen age daughter dropped a stick of deodorant into the toilet. Instead of doing the awful thing of reaching into the toilet bowl she decided to just flush the problem away. The stick made the turn around the first part of the S curve but couldn't go any further. It was stuck in the middle of the S curve. It was not visible and a toilet auger would just bypass it. I tied a three prong fish hook to a sturdy string and flushed it. It would catch something but couldn't pull it out.

I finally took the toilet outside and maneuvered a 1/4 inch rope through the S curve and tied the rope to an old fashioned mop head. I attempted to pull the mop head backwards through the S curve and with it the obstruction but this didn't work either.

I still had no idea what the obstruction was. My daughter never admitted to having any knowledge of the missing stick of deodorant.

After a few months of putting up with a toilet that would clog easily I took matters into my own hand. HAMMER! DEODORANT! ANGRY!

After I calmed down I went to Home Depot to get a new toilet. It was only then that I discovered that the size (3.5 gallon) and the color (Harvest Gold) was not available. I settled for a 1.6 gallon white Kohler.

A few years went by with my mis-matched toilet and then my neighbor had a garage sale. In the sale he had his old 3.5 gallon Harvest Gold toilet left over from his updated bathroom with a "free" sign on it. Bingo. I'm back to being matched again with my 70's style bathroom.

P.S. I do not have a avocado refrigerator

[tnom]

Read my full reply. You have a solid object that was flushed down the toilet and is stuck in the middle of the S curve. Remove the toilet and shake it to confirm a rattle sound.

[ds549]

i had a rental with the same system and problem. a little kid flushed a pencil.she walked in and told me. water would go down fine but not solds the closet auger didnt get it. so i had the little girl reach in and she got the pencil out. i agree you should pour water down the pipe with the toilet off to make sure problem isnt there.. ive fixed many slow flush toilets by opening up the little holes under the rim with a nail..lucas

[Jeff Wisnia]

If you can borrow the right kind of fiber optic viewing tool you can look in the S-bend and checks to see if there's a partial obstruction.

Got any doctor friends?

Jeff

[blueman]

Yes did both.

No - bucket flushing didn't help

No, but the toilet flushes vigorously when there are no solids (I guess to test I should have taken a dump directly into the open drain line and poured a bucket of water down :)

[crapper]

Damn -- should have done that when I had it off the wax ring

Interesting - I actually have a (non-medical) 24 inch fiber optic scope... Only problem is I would have to stick my face pretty close into the bowl to reach plus I'm not sure it is water proof and even if it is, I'm not sure I want to be sticking it down the toilet...

[Vic Dura]

On Wed, 04 Oct 2006 17:55:32 GMT, crapper wrote Re FRUSTRATION: (UPDATE) Toilet clogs repeatedly...:

I once had the same type of problem. Liquids would flush fine, but toilet paper would cause the toilet to slow-drain. When I removed the bowl I was expecting to see an obstruction, but didn't see anything. I put my hand up into the bottom of the bowl from where it meets with the wax ring. At first I couldn't find any obstruction. Then I found it.

A piece of dental floss! Someone had flushed it and it got caught in there. It would snag toilet paper and slow the flush, but liquids-only had no problem.

Feel around up there for anything that could cause a snag. Reach up as far as you can but be careful not to get you hand stuck.

[Craven Morehead]

As has been discussed here many times, new commodes are inferior and prone to clogging. FWIE, usually, the date of manufacture is stamped inside the tank. I'm not sure when "low-flush" toilets were mandated but one indication of which you may have is the size of the "water spot". That is, the amount of surface presented by the water in the bowl, when at rest. Newer, problematic toilets have a water spot approx. 4" in diameter. Older ones can be 7" - 8".

Another possibility is that the obstructi>> OK... so this is a little embarassing...

[Stormin Mormon]

Dear Jeff, Your doctor has a fiber optic viewer that was in someone's toilet. Which of your 2,000 body parts do you want examined with a toilet optic?

[Na'ilah]

I had pasty residue clinging to the walls of the toilet drain, thicker at at the flange and tapering to nothing at the bottom - was thinking lime scale due to hard water and the metal flange, but possibly some wax in the mix, now that washer/dryer and basement shower are all near the toilet and husband washes with piping hot water... About to replace ring - will use rubber not wax this time.

[Tekkie©]

On Thu, 13 May 2021 17:45:02 +0000, Na'ilah posted for all of us to digest...

water... About to replace ring - will use rubber not wax this time.

Wax is not the problem. The lime scale is; in multiple ways. It may have clogged the jet hole, rim holes, trap way. You may have to replace the toilet and add a water softener. Look on U tube for more thoughts.