Toilet plugging up

11 years ago

Hope to get some help. We have an American Standard 1.6 gallon flush toilet. Was installed 8 years ago. It has been plugging for a few weeks now on a regular basis when flushing solids and eventually requires plunging, real good brow sweat plunging.

We are on a 2000 gal. Cistern. All common denominators are the same, nothing has been changed in the plumbing system. Paper waste into the toilet has always been kept to a minimum since the low water consumption toilet was installed. I imagine no one calculated the water wasted for the triple flushes at times but that's for another thread.

I have checked the cistern it is not full and checked the level indicator it is free and working. Freezing is not an issue as this has been happening when temps are above 32 F.

The last thing I want to do is crawl below the floor in the crawlspace and remove the cleanout on the vent stack. This is not a position I want to be in as I won't be able to move out of the way very fast if something is in there.

Any suggestions folks would be appreciated. Thanks all.

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Comments (3)

brickeyee
11 years ago
An object in the toilet's trap-way is a common culprit.
southerncanuck
Original Author
11 years ago
Thanks brickeyee, the step I forgot about is to snake the thing. Need to find one and will give it a rheam.

Thanks again.
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kudzu9
11 years ago
Canuck-
Just be aware that snaking doesn't work with all obstructions. After we had some house guests recently, I had a persistent problem with a Toto toilet that had never plugged before. I snaked it and plunged it multiple times, but no improvement. After a couple of hours, I was thinking about pulling the toilet to get better access. However, as a last ditch effort, I tuned off the water supply and flushed a couple of times until most of the water was gone. Then I turned on my shop vac and stuck the hose as far into the trap as possible. When I pulled the hose back, out came a popsicle stick that must have been stuck crosswise in the trap!

Good luck with snaking, but you may have to try other approaches if that fails.