Hi everyone, newcomer to the forums here, nice to meet you all.
I bought a new house in August and around mid-fall began to notice some strange indicators of trouble in the plumbing system. Note, we are on a septic system. Below are some of the symptoms I've seen, which I believe are connected somehow.
1) Multiple toilets in the house can "gurgle," almost like there is a suction pulling at the water causing it to go "glub glub glub". This can happen after flushing the toilet or when nearby fixtures are draining. Most problematic is my main floor toilet, which will almost always gurgle when we're doing the dishes in the nearby kitchen sink or when the washer is running in the adjacent laundry room.
2) Similar issues on the upstairs when the shower is running causing the upstairs toilet to gurgle.
3) The downstairs toilet occasionally has some kind of waste material coming back up into it
4) The kitchen sink is leaking from below, and after investigating I found this occurs when too much water goes down the drain (like if you empty a big pot full of water, for example) and then the water spills out over the plastic collar where the PVC pipe connects to the metal pipe that comes from the bottom of the sink (sorry if my terminology is inexact here). My interpretation is that the volume of water is too much to drain, so it pushes back up and then spills out where the two pipes connect (perhaps these are not sealed properly?) but either way also a venting issue causing poor flow, it seems?
Anyhow, it seems clear that all is not right with the system. I spoke to our home inspector who very helpfully dropped by to take a look (free of charge, quite a guy) and advised it is most likely due to the venting.
I tried to troubleshoot this by
1) Climbed the roof, inspected the vent pipe to make sure it was clear of obstruction. I dropped a heavy wrench on a rope about 20 feet down the pipe and all seemed clear.
2) I used an 25 ft auger on the downstairs toilet (which is the biggest problem) to make sure it wasn't clogged. I also augered the sink in that bathroom. Both were all clear with no problems.
Next steps, my home inspector advised that I put some "cheater vents" on the end of the main waste pipes line in the basement (which all the fixtures drain into) so that these have better flow when those fixtures are draining.
However, having researching cheater vents a bit, I can't find any indication of them being used in that way.
I guess I don't just want to put a band-aid on it if there is some larger issue. It bugs me that things aren't venting properly because they were before -- so why not now?
This feels like it could be expensive to troubleshoot so I thought I would arm myself with some knowledge before calling in a professional. Any help, advice, tips, or info would be very much appreciated!
Thanks,
Tom
I bought a new house in August and around mid-fall began to notice some strange indicators of trouble in the plumbing system. Note, we are on a septic system. Below are some of the symptoms I've seen, which I believe are connected somehow.
1) Multiple toilets in the house can "gurgle," almost like there is a suction pulling at the water causing it to go "glub glub glub". This can happen after flushing the toilet or when nearby fixtures are draining. Most problematic is my main floor toilet, which will almost always gurgle when we're doing the dishes in the nearby kitchen sink or when the washer is running in the adjacent laundry room.
2) Similar issues on the upstairs when the shower is running causing the upstairs toilet to gurgle.
3) The downstairs toilet occasionally has some kind of waste material coming back up into it
4) The kitchen sink is leaking from below, and after investigating I found this occurs when too much water goes down the drain (like if you empty a big pot full of water, for example) and then the water spills out over the plastic collar where the PVC pipe connects to the metal pipe that comes from the bottom of the sink (sorry if my terminology is inexact here). My interpretation is that the volume of water is too much to drain, so it pushes back up and then spills out where the two pipes connect (perhaps these are not sealed properly?) but either way also a venting issue causing poor flow, it seems?
Anyhow, it seems clear that all is not right with the system. I spoke to our home inspector who very helpfully dropped by to take a look (free of charge, quite a guy) and advised it is most likely due to the venting.
I tried to troubleshoot this by
1) Climbed the roof, inspected the vent pipe to make sure it was clear of obstruction. I dropped a heavy wrench on a rope about 20 feet down the pipe and all seemed clear.
2) I used an 25 ft auger on the downstairs toilet (which is the biggest problem) to make sure it wasn't clogged. I also augered the sink in that bathroom. Both were all clear with no problems.
Next steps, my home inspector advised that I put some "cheater vents" on the end of the main waste pipes line in the basement (which all the fixtures drain into) so that these have better flow when those fixtures are draining.
However, having researching cheater vents a bit, I can't find any indication of them being used in that way.
I guess I don't just want to put a band-aid on it if there is some larger issue. It bugs me that things aren't venting properly because they were before -- so why not now?
This feels like it could be expensive to troubleshoot so I thought I would arm myself with some knowledge before calling in a professional. Any help, advice, tips, or info would be very much appreciated!
Thanks,
Tom
