Intermittent plumbing issue. Ideas? Toilet backing up, tub not draining properly.

[Tyrone Biggums]

This has happened twice since yesterday. Started last night. Hall bath, tub and toilet next to each other. Flush the toilet and the bowl just fills up, can't get it to empty. Verified no blockage in the bowl itself. Got pissed and hopped in the shower and the tub was draining very slowly then started draining fine. Got out and the toilet bowl was empty and working properly again.

Got in the shower this morning and tub was draining fine, but could hear the toilet bowl bubbling consistently. Got out and tried to flush the commode it and the bowl filled back up. Turned on the tub faucet and let it go and the tub just filled up with the drain wide open and was bubbling back into the toilet and the bowl was filling up. As I was emptying the bowl frantically the tub started to drain rapidly and the bowl emptied itself. Now everything works fine again. If it helps the diagnosis, there in no dirty water or water period backing up from the toilet into the tub.

WTF?

[mstng86]

Throw some draino in both and see what happens.

[Binky]

Drains need a vent to drain properly, yours is likely blocked. I'd snake the vents that lead to the roof to clear any obstructions.

[bcoop]

Drains need a vent to drain properly, yours is likely blocked. I'd snake the vents that lead to the roof to clear any obstructions.

Yep. Jimmy, if your wife is flushing baby wipes, it will cause this. I have a great plumber, but I don't believe he goes out your way. It's worth a shot. Call Mark Ondras Plumbing. Last time he was out it was 79 or so, IIRC.

[Tyrone Biggums]

Baby wipes aren't getting flushed but I know the Target brand "flushable" wipes are. Like you guys are saying, I've been racking my brain trying to figure it out and keep coming to a vent issue. If it were an actual drainage clog, I would think it would drain poorly all the time. But it's drained perfectly until these last two occasions. A buddy of mine has a snake. I guess I'm going to get on the roof and run it down the vent to see what happens.

[yellowstang]

Jimmy, our house in Hurst did that every year, usually in the fall. Tree roots growing into the sewer line. Had to get them roto-rootered (sp?) out. TP and other shit catches onto it, usually after a while it can get thru, slowly until another batch catches it.

[Tyrone Biggums]

This has turned into a nightmare. Taking a shower in the master bath caused the hall toilet to bubble like crazy. I take a shower in the hall bath and the toilet bubbled like crazy and all my shower water backed up into the master shower and caused water to come out where the master toilet base meets the floor. Of course, it's Sunday and a service call from anyone is going to cost upwards of $300 just to get someone out here.

[unkoricky]

This has happened to me before.

Buy some stuff from home depot, pour it down the pipes and leave it in there overnight.

Call the city and tell them you have backed up pipes.Tell them you have tried everything and you want them to check to see if the cities pipe is broken on the other side of the sidewalk.
- They came to my house a few hours later, ended up clearing my pipes that were backed up. The city had some policy about if i were to call at least 3 times telling them i had a problem with my pipes that they'll actually run a camera down in the pipes. Randomly 2 weeks later without me knowing, they came back and ran a camera down and found roots about 10 feet away from my house.

[wishitwasasvt]

Sounds like you need to have your system cleaned. Give me a call I run a sewer business I can help you out. Gary-817-774-1236

[Tyrone Biggums]

Plumber just left. There is a break in the line at the street. As I started to type this I thought I would be waiting a while for the City of Arlington to get here, but 20 minutes after the plumber left, a guy from the city called and said they were on their way.

[unkoricky]

Plumber just left. There is a break in the line at the street. As I started to type this I thought I would be waiting a while for the City of Arlington to get here, but 20 minutes after the plumber left, a guy from the city called and said they were on their way.

so what happen ?

[Tyrone Biggums]

so what happen ?

The city came out and ran their camera to verify the break and hit impassable mud about six feet from the curb in my yard. I virtually crapped my pants when I saw them mark the spot, but the guy came up and assured me that it was within the city's "right-of-way"" and they would cover the repair. I had to go the water dpt. and sign off on a contract to start the repair and then the contractor has 24 hours to make the sewer line "functional", basically clear the blockage so we can flush our toilets and shower, 48 hours to complete the repair, and 15 days to put my yard back together. Depending on the condition they leave it in, I may end up putting my yard back together myself.

Props to Tom's plumbing for making it out so quick. I called them at 7:30 and someone was there before 9. Same to the City of Arlington. I called them at 9:15 and they were at the house in 30 minutes.

[ELVIS]

jimmy, you think the lack of rain and the ground settling caused the crack in the pipe?

god bless.

[Lason]

Consider yourself lucky. I had a break in the sewage line and it was past the city cleanout and Arlington told me I was responsible all the way to the manhole in the middle of the street!!! Supposedly the city mgr told me they voted on it years ago to save money and the week after the vote, the city council member who's idea it was had to have his fixed in the street and pay to have the street re-paved and all that. Total BS, I even contacted the news but they said they knew about it.

I got lucky and the break was the Y for the city clean out but it was a old cleanout that wasnt used anymore so I removed it. I told the city if it was under the street then I was going to re-route my plumbing to empty onto the curb and see how long it would last with my turds floating down the street

[Tyrone Biggums]

jimmy, you think the lack of rain and the ground settling caused the crack in the pipe?

god bless.

Not in this case. I water the hell out of my yard. But, there's more to this story.

So the contractor comes out the next morning to clear the blockage so the city can run the camera again to find the exact problem. He runs his auger with a water hose behind it and clears the line in minutes. City comes back out to run the camera and tells me the pipes are clear. I have them pull the camera back out and let me see for myself. We run it 85 feet out to the street and find no reason for a blockage. There was one small spot near where the original blockage was that has a few fine hair roots visible, but nothing major. No reason we could see to dig up the yard.

Yesterday I'm about to pull the flags so I could do yard work and call the city to verify that the contract had been cancelled and they told me the contractor wants to replace that section of pipe anyways so they don't have to do it a few years down the road. Who knows if that section was the cause of the problem or not?

I can say without a doubt that we will no longer be using Target brand "flushable" toddler wipes, or "flushable" wipes ever again. I suspected they may not have been the sole cause of the blockage but may have contributed to it so we left one in a bowl of water yesterday for 12 hours and it didn't even start to dissolve. It came out of the bowl in the same condition it went in.