Blocked toilet/ drain problem.

[dannynolan]

We have two toilets one upstairs, one downstairs. The downstairs toilet connects to the sewer a few feet further away from the manhole than the stack from the upstairs toilet.

The upstairs toilet works fine, and when flushed we can see a good flow through the manhole. The downstairs toilet fills with water after a couple of flushes and slowly drains away, and we only see a trickle of water through the manhole. Tried buckets of soapy water, plunger, mop wrapped in a bag, and a concertina plunger but couldn't sort it.

Called Dyno-Rod and after he saw the flows of water, diagnosed roots blocking the sewer between the stack connection and the manhole. I couldn't see why the roots would stop the downstairs toilet but not the upstairs, but he said it was because the roots were on the left hand/house side of the sewer pipe. He didn't have a sewer camera. In the picture below obviously there is a small bit of root growth. He said jetting would be ineffective and recommended root-cutting for a few hundred quid.

Our downstairs toilet is in the middle of the house 2.5 metres from the sewer, it takes only a couple of flushes for the pan to fill up, so there must be a chance that the blockage is before the sewer, no?

I suggested that he just jet down the downstairs toilet anyway, but he said that wouldn't work. He then suggested a camera up the sewer as an option, but that would be a hundred quid.

It's obviously in their interests to bill me as much as possible, but my inclination is to pay to jet the downstairs toilet and see how that goes.

Any thoughts on all this from the experts.

We have rods with a plunger on the end would it be worth pushing this up the drain?

Also I've seen drain cameras on Amazon for about £25. Worth buying here, or not?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Wayners]

Has the problem toilet got a soil pipe vent or an air admittance valve? Remove the aav and flush for interest.

 

[terryplumb]

Out of curiosity,how much did you get charged for the
"Opinion" ,or did they do stuff you haven't mentioned ?
As you have drainage rods , its worth rodding

 

[dannynolan]

Has the problem toilet got a soil pipe vent or an air admittance valve? Remove the aav and flush for interest.

Thanks for the reply, neither.

 

[dannynolan]

Out of curiosity,how much did you get charged for the
"Opinion" ,or did they do stuff you haven't mentioned ?
As you have drainage rods , its worth rodding

He was only here for five minutes and didn't charge, but thinks he might be getting a hundred for the camera, for starters!

Just seemed to be too quick to try and 'upsell' us to hundreds of quid for the root-cutting.

 

[Stuckinarut]

Might be worth a worm screw/pig tail to remove any roots?

 

[YorkshireMidge]

Maths was never my strong point but if the pipe is 2.5M long to the sewer and 10cm diameter, if you can imagine it completely full of water, it would be holding around 19.6L. Now in reality, if there is a blockage, the pipe will likely be trapping some air in there too - but I still think that a couple of 6L flushes causing a backup means that it is in that 2.5M long section.

We had a similar problem a few years back - but the "middle-of-the house" loo was the upstairs en-suite in our case. What had happened was the vertical soil stack was fine, but the soil pipe had collapsed under the concrete floor in our hall just after it had gone horizontal. I tried a USB boroscope type camera but the problem was so far in, there just wasn't enough illumination.

In hindsight, I should have gone straight for a camera job as the pros got the bottom of the problem in a few minutes, and they provided the footage so we could pass that to our insurer. Our house policy covered the repair work and the camera inspection. Hopefully, your issue isn't as serious as ours was.

Mysterious soil pipe blockage

Have a bit of a strange soil pipe blockage issue affecting our upstairs en-suite bathroom and wondered if anyone had any ideas. The initial symptom was the en-suite shower tray drain intermittently backing up. i.e. one minute it would be fine, the next minute you're in a paddling pool! This...

www.diynot.com

 

[Wayners]

Thanks for the reply, neither.

You will have one or the other.
I'm thinking you have a hidden air admittance valve that's faulty causing a vacuum in pipe work.
My outlaws had this on the upstairs toilet. Just by removing all was fixed but you can't leave it off because of the smells

 

[dannynolan]

Maths was never my strong point but if the pipe is 2.5M long to the sewer and 10cm diameter, if you can imagine it completely full of water, it would be holding around 19.6L. Now in reality, if there is a blockage, the pipe will likely be trapping some air in there too - but I still think that a couple of 6L flushes causing a backup means that it is in that 2.5M long section.

We had a similar problem a few years back - but the "middle-of-the house" loo was the upstairs en-suite in our case. What had happened was the vertical soil stack was fine, but the soil pipe had collapsed under the concrete floor in our hall just after it had gone horizontal. I tried a USB boroscope type camera but the problem was so far in, there just wasn't enough illumination.

In hindsight, I should have gone straight for a camera job as the pros got the bottom of the problem in a few minutes, and they provided the footage so we could pass that to our insurer. Our house policy covered the repair work and the camera inspection. Hopefully, your issue isn't as serious as ours was.

https://www.diythe volume in the pipe. not.com/diy/threads/mysterious-soil-pipe-blockage.570195

Maths was never my strong point but if the pipe is 2.5M long to the sewer and 10cm diameter, if you can imagine it completely full of water, it would be holding around 19.6L. Now in reality, if there is a blockage, the pipe will likely be trapping some air in there too - but I still think that a couple of 6L flushes causing a backup means that it is in that 2.5M long section.

We had a similar problem a few years back - but the "middle-of-the house" loo was the upstairs en-suite in our case. What had happened was the vertical soil stack was fine, but the soil pipe had collapsed under the concrete floor in our hall just after it had gone horizontal. I tried a USB boroscope type camera but the problem was so far in, there just wasn't enough illumination.

In hindsight, I should have gone straight for a camera job as the pros got the bottom of the problem in a few minutes, and they provided the footage so we could pass that to our insurer. Our house policy covered the repair work and the camera inspection. Hopefully, your issue isn't as serious as ours was.

Mysterious soil pipe blockage

Have a bit of a strange soil pipe blockage issue affecting our upstairs en-suite bathroom and wondered if anyone had any ideas. The initial symptom was the en-suite shower tray drain intermittently backing up. i.e. one minute it would be fine, the next minute you're in a paddling pool! This...

www.diynot.com

Thankyou for your reply, that's what we thought re, that's what we thought re the volume of water in the pipe.

Our downstairs loo waste pipe also goes under a concrete floor (kitchen in our case) so could be a similar problem.

Camera inspection probably the next step then,

Thanks again.

 

[dannynolan]

You will have one or the other.
I'm thinking you have a hidden air admittance valve that's faulty causing a vacuum in pipe work.
My outlaws had this on the upstairs toilet. Just by removing all was fixed but you can't leave it off because of the smells

Many thanks for that, will investigate tomorrow.

 

[YorkshireMidge]

You will have one or the other.
I'm thinking you have a hidden air admittance valve that's faulty causing a vacuum in pipe work.
My outlaws had this on the upstairs toilet. Just by removing all was fixed but you can't leave it off because of the smells

Is the vertical distance not a factor in vacuum issues? - hense why you could readily get the issue in an upstairs toilet. My understanding is if that vertical soil pipe is relatively short, an AAV needn't be used (i.e. it wouldn't generate enough vaccume to operate one anyway).

In our house, the downstairs loo has never had an AAV and there is no soil stack. The soil pipe is in the concrete floor and drops straight down around 0.5m, then 1m horizontal to the nearest inspection point outside. Our other two loos are upstairs and empty into soil stacks that are open to the air.

So I guess it's possible the O/P has the same situation for his downstairs loo - except a longer horizontal run.

 

[Hugh Jaleak]

We don't call them Dyno Rob in the sewer game for nothing. I'd tell them to take a hike, and see if you can do something yourself first.

Ground Floor WC can be directly connected to the drain, so there wont be a Stack or AAV. Common practice, so don't waste your time looking for something that isn't there! I do wish people wouldn't comment when they don't know what they're talking about.

Does the lateral from this WC connect into the main run at the Manhole, so you can access it? I'd hold off with the Camera for now, it's probably only going to tell you what you already know, and wont unblock the pipe.

If you can rod from the Manhole, then you may be able to break through enough to get the downstairs WC flowing, just using the corkscrew attachment on the end of some rods, You need to keep turning them clockwise anyway to ensure they don't come apart in the drain, feed them up the affected pipe, and they should wind into anything that's in the way, pull back and remove arisings as required. This will probably alos indicate the presence of roots, and you can then plan the next stage.

It may benefit from being Jetted with a 'Warthog' or similar, or use of a Root Cutter, but this will only buy you time, the roots will be back. Long term solution would be to either look at getting the pipe lined, to seal up any cracks or broken joints where the roots are getting in, or depending on depth and access, excavate and replace the affected section of drain.

 

[Wayners]

@YorkshireMidge

The upstairs toilet used to vent through roof but was cut off and a AAV fitted. Run fine for years but then the toilet would fill with water and not drain away.
Downstairs toilet didn't have any vent and didn't ever have trouble.
I still can't understand how the upstairs toilet blocked because of a faulty vent.
Anyway swapped and all good.

On a side note. 3 plumbers came out plus the waterboard several times over a 3 year period and not one mention soil vent or lack of one being visible. Crazy. I cut out boxing and swapped AAV and all good.

Also waterboard said they run rods through drains and cleared blockage. I don't think there ever was one

 

[YorkshireMidge]

@Wayners I have to say that if the AAV has stuck closed, I would normally expect the vacuume created by the flush to be more than sufficient to draw the water out of any sink traps emptying into the same soil stack, so you'd just get a bad stink from the sink, and the loo would still work.
So there must be something a little unusual in the setup in that case. Anyway, as you say, swapped and sorted.

@dannynolan Do you know exactly how/where the upstairs loo soil stack and downstairs loo soil pipe tee into each other? I assume your photo is a sewer inspection chamber downstream and if both empty out of that one pipe, you'd hope that the builders put a small access chamber upstream where the tee is. That is certainly the case at our house both front and back.

 

[dannynolan]

We don't call them Dyno Rob in the sewer game for nothing. I'd tell them to take a hike, and see if you can do something yourself first.

Ground Floor WC can be directly connected to the drain, so there wont be a Stack or AAV. Common practice, so don't waste your time looking for something that isn't there! I do wish people wouldn't comment when they don't know what they're talking about.

Does the lateral from this WC connect into the main run at the Manhole, so you can access it? I'd hold off with the Camera for now, it's probably only going to tell you what you already know, and wont unblock the pipe.

If you can rod from the Manhole, then you may be able to break through enough to get the downstairs WC flowing, just using the corkscrew attachment on the end of some rods, You need to keep turning them clockwise anyway to ensure they don't come apart in the drain, feed them up the affected pipe, and they should wind into anything that's in the way, pull back and remove arisings as required. This will probably alos indicate the presence of roots, and you can then plan the next stage.

It may benefit from being Jetted with a 'Warthog' or similar, or use of a Root Cutter, but this will only buy you time, the roots will be back. Long term solution would be to either look at getting the pipe lined, to seal up any cracks or broken joints where the roots are getting in, or depending on depth and access, excavate and replace the affected section of drain.

Many thanks for that, much appreciated, we are out today. We had the pipes replaced 12 years ago, and will post pictures of the exact layout this evening.