Toilet keeps stopping up even after running toilet snake through it several times.

[Don Morris]

It's a 7 yr old TOTO toilet, supposedly a good quality brand, and we have several of them around the house, and they don't cause problems like this one, which started this about 6 months ago. I ran a good quality toilet snake up and down it several times, but once a week or so, it stops up and it doesn't take a monsterous "dump" to do it. Clears up easily enough with a plunger. What next? No problem to take the toilet off, I've taken a couple toilets off before. 25 yrs ago to discover a tinker toy was the problem. But we don't have small children around any more. And we know better than to throw dental floss down the toilet which can get caught. After I get it off, if I don't see any problem in the toilet, I have a 35' Rigid Roto rooter I run yearly through the basement drain, that I'll run from the toilet out towards the street for 15' -20'. Does that sound like the logical plan? I've taken toilets off, just haven't taken a lot of toilets off. Normally in the past, running the snake up and down, cleared clogged toilet problems.

[Jerome Stanek]

Have you ever used one of those toilet bowl cakes that hang on the side. My wife had one and the wire dropped into the toilet and would cause this problem. I snaked plunged and still couldn't get it fixed finally had to pull the toilet to get it out.

[Dan Hintz]

I agree with Jerome... look for other obstructions. Our (relatively new) dishwasher would fail to drain at random times... sometimes it would be okay, others not. There was a piece of grape stem stuck in the air gap. Took me over a year to find it, and SWMBO was getting very impatient with having to scoop water out of the machine with a cup.

Also, snaking says there's a hole... but it doesn't say how BIG of a hole it is. If the sides of the pipe are filled with algea, for example, that 4" pipe just shifted to 1". Even a small dump will clog that. I'm thinking something similar is happening to ours, so at some point I'm going to get frustrated enough and get in there to fix it.

[Brian Elfert]

I've had to pull my toilet twice to remove toilet paper plugging up the exit of the trap. No amount of using a toilet snake helped. There is a small burr in the porcelain right at the exit that is not helping things. I thought about filing it down, but I figured that would remove the smooth finish.

[Bob Turkovich]

Let me offer another suggestion based on recent experience. My situation was that upon flushing, the bowl would never completely drain and - as a result - would refill to a higher level than normal. A couple of pushes with the plunger would drain the bowl and an immediate following flush would clear the bowl and fill it properly. However, upon the next time conducting "business" the bowl would not again not drain.

A quick trip through Google suggested that the problem could be due to insufficient water pressure during the flush and suggested checking for two things: a clogged vent stack or clogged water inlets into the bowl.

To check if it is a water pressure issue, it was recommended that you rapidly dump a 5 gallon pail of water into the bowl. If the bowl drains quickly it is not a clogged drain but likely a water pressure issue. My toilet passed the 5 gallon test. Since no other drain in the house was clogged, I doubted that it was a stack issue.

I next checked the water inlets into the bowl. My toilet is an American Standard and water enters through holes in the bowl rim and a center jet at the bottom of the bowl drain. Using a mirror I saw that the front rim jets were 50% plugged with calcium deposits and the bottom jet was over 50% plugged. After cleaning the rim jets with a nylon scrubber and the bottom jet with a small metal spatula, the toilet is now operating properly.

This advice is purely narrative as I am not a professional plumber. Unfortunately my toilet problem occurred during a recent 24 hour stomach flu than ran rampart through my family and required plunging between , er, um, events.:o

[Prashun Patel]

Bob, I have the same problem on my upstairs toilet. However, that bathroom has been through 2 toilets (same make as the ones in the rest of the house) and they both have had the same issue. If it were a water pressure or build up issue, wouldn't you think it'd manifest on all the toilets? The fact that it's localized to one in both Don's and my house makes me wonder if it has to do with the vent.

However, yr post really has me thinking. A little scrubbing is an easy experiment. Thanks for the post.

[Troy Turner]

Take the toilet off and call a plumber. Not to fix the problem, but to bring a camera. He should be able to run it as far as we can to see if there's anything past what you can see that could be causing the problem.

[Phil Thien]

Agree with everyone else, had a similar circumstance and it was a toothbrush. Did anyone claim the TB? Nope.

[Dick Strauss]

Try a shop vac (with a wet towel to seal the hole). One of my nieces had a small haircare can fall into the toilet from a shelf above just as the toilet was being flushed. This little can blocked 90+% of the flow and got wedged in place. I took the shop vac (with the filter removed) into the bathroom and sucked the can right out. If it is a blockage, possibly this method will work for you as well before you remove the toilet.

[Joe Angrisani]

Don....

I think it sounds like roots.

I'm not familiar with the "35' Rigid roto rooter". What kind of tip are you running down the drain? Is it like the one below? If so, it ain't gonna cut it. You need to run one of those full pipe-diameter sharpened root cutters, and you need to get ALL THE WAY to the sewer main. I know 35' would never get to the main even in my house here in suburbia.

250017
FOLLOW UP: Is this the lowest toilet in the house?

[Dan Hintz]

IThere is a small burr in the porcelain right at the exit that is not helping things. I thought about filing it down, but I figured that would remove the smooth finish.
A little medium CA glue should seal the porcelain again...

[Bob Turkovich]

Bob, I have the same problem on my upstairs toilet. However, that bathroom has been through 2 toilets (same make as the ones in the rest of the house) and they both have had the same issue. If it were a water pressure or build up issue, wouldn't you think it'd manifest on all the toilets? The fact that it's localized to one in both Don's and my house makes me wonder if it has to do with the vent.

However, yr post really has me thinking. A little scrubbing is an easy experiment. Thanks for the post.

Prashun,

I have four toilets and one of them had a similar problem that wasn't quite as bad. It also had plugged rim holes which - after scrubbing - performed much better. The toilet that required plunging every time also gets the most usage.

I think Don could try the 5-gallon bucket test. At least, it will tell him what to rule out.

As far as downstream plugs, my only similar experience was when a mechanic left a shop rag in a prototype intake manifold for an executive ride & drive but that's another story...;)

[Alan Bienlein]

I use to have that problem. Had the toilet off multiple times and could never find anything in the drain or toilet. Went out and bought new toilets that guaranteed not to clog and never had another problem since.

I even took a hammer to the old toilet to see if something was caught where I couldn't get to with a snake and it was all clear. All I could figure was it was the design of the toilet.

[Joe Mioux]

We have a similar problem wit an American Std, 1994 Model. As a quick fix we use single ply tp.

[Don Morris]

This is not the lowest toilet. There is a similar TOTO one floor lower and closer to roots than this one, so I don't think it's roots. But obviously, it needs to come off tomorrow and be inspected. There is a TOTO dealer not too far from which I'll get a wax ring. I'll run the problem by him too. See what his take is on the problem. Thanks for the time taken to put in ideas and suggestions. That's what makes the "Creek" a great site...the people on it.

[Jerome Stanek]

are the toilets above one another. If not it could be a plugged vent stack