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Any plumbers? Toilet problems

stealthee

stealthee

New member
Make your jokes now. I know I am full of sh!t. :p

Anyway

At one point last year my toilet would not flush & acted as it were plugged, even though it shouldn't be. Even so, I plunged it many times & eventually it flushed fully.

A few months later it did the same thing. I attempted many times to plunge it, even bought and tried a toilet snake to no avail. This time I noticed that when I was plunging that there was a suction noise coming from near the side. The cap on the mount bolt is missing & when I looked I could actually see some water past the nut. When I plunged I could see the water react to the suction. There was no water leaking outside of the toilet, though where the linoleum isn't cut perfect I did notice the subfloor appeared wet.

At that point I called my landlord to inform him of the situation. He wasn't able to make it out that evening, but said he would investigate the following day. Well, wouldn't you know it the toilet flushed on it's own the next time I flushed it before he could even get there to see what it was doing. I had to work the following day, but I left him a note telling him of everything. Unfortunately, he did not see the note. He dug up and checked the septic tank, which was fine, and since the toilet was flushing fine he considered the issue fixed, even though the subfloor was wet.

Anyway, that was almost a year ago & the toilet started doing it again. It started last week and would sometimes flush, and sometimes not. Landlord was called, but hasn't made it out yet. I even started looking at possible fixes online and found nothing that describes my issue. I even put some dish soap down the overflow pipe, as instructed in one video and when I flushed bubbles actually came out of the bolt hole.

I stopped trying at that point and intend on waiting on the landlord. Only thing I can figure at this point is internal crack or an issue with the wax ring. The only thing with that, though, is you would think the issue wouldn't have "fixed itself" twice before.

So if anyone has any tips or advice that I might be able to help my landlord with I would greatly appreciate it.
 


How old is the toilet.<<<<<big question
1)Do you use puck style bowl cleaners that drop in the tank. Sometimes they will move into the flush hole under the flapper in the bowl causing a water restriction.
2)Lime build up over time will trash it. No amount of muratic acid will clean it out.
Could be something stuck in it?? but you would need a Ridgid or General toilet snake

Now as far as the subfloor and visible water.......your wax ring is shot, maybe among other things.

What I do is pull toilet.... replace guts(new Fluid master and korky flapper),wax ring, use johni-bolts(saw them off and new caps).
repair subfloor if needed, so toilet doesn't rock.

other than that you probably need a new toilet.

I have repaired/replaced hundreds of toilets
 
Appreciate the advice. No puck cleaners used. Lime build up is a possibility.

No idea on how old toilet is. I have only been in the home for going on two years now. Its an American Standard so the toilet itself is a quality one.

Would the wax ring be causing the flushing issues, or is it just an additional problem?
 
stealthee said:
Appreciate the advice. No puck cleaners used. Lime build up is a possibility.

No idea on how old toilet is. I have only been in the home for going on two years now. Its an American Standard so the toilet itself is a quality one.

Would the wax ring be causing the flushing issues, or is it just an additional problem?
Click to expand...

No, the wax ring is the water problem, which absolutely has to be taken care of before the floor rots more.

When that gets replaced you can look at the bottom to see if anything is at the exit hole. That's always where things hang up on the lip.

Is it a 1.6 gallon or the old 3.5 gallon flush. PM me a pic
 
stealthee said:
It's the 1.6.
Click to expand...

K. I have an American Standard 1.6 here too.
well he needs to pull it and get a new wax ring down.
He can check the toilet then.
This is easy to do but most dudes are lazy.
If he doesn't do the easy fix he will have to do a lot more work(and $$) later.
 


He's an older guy, but is handy. I'll even tell him I will help him if he needs the help to get the work done.

The fill valve probably needs replaced too, but I will do that on my own once the other issues are resolved. I mean, it works, but its seen better days.

Again, thanks for the advice. If it were my house I would have already pulled the toilet up and fixed everything, but being its not mine, I am not going to risk getting into a large project that the landlord should take care of.
 
the seal is bad. easy fix. those two bolts get taken off water line off off, drain the bowl, remove the bowl, remove old crap stained seal, install new one in place put the bowl after making sure its clean under it where the seal meets center, push it into the new seal with all your weight, then snug it down with the bolts. add the water line and its done.

the bad news is the floor maybe in need of help now if its been damp for a year.
 
I'm in agreement on the wax ring. The only question I'd have is.. did a woman happen to visit right before it didn't want to flush the first time?

Any other guy that's semi handy will know what I'm getting at. It's common. Wax ring needs to be replaced when you yank the toilet to fix that problem too.
 
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