Hello,

Our toilet would not flush this evening it just filled with water. We spent half an hour trying to use the plunger on it, only to discover that it was pushing all the water from the toilet into the shower standing next to it. We are in an above ground cottage with town water in & septic out on a gravity feed, no pumps. Septic is a green system, 4 years old and has annual maintenance checks, the last one was less than 3 months ago . Also a lot of water was seeping out all around the base of the toilet leading me to think the wax seal is also shot. We added liquid plumr to the shower and it has slowly drained over the last 4 hours but still not fully. We only have one bathroom. Help would be greatly appreciated!

Angela

Hello Again,

Well after letting the Liquid Plum'R sit for 12 hours and running a snake through the shower drain and toilet it seems to be clear now, and flushing just fine. This after a night of bucket peeing!

Now that the emergency is over start looking to see if you have a main clean out. Your clog was in the drain line downstream of the toilet and the shower, sink vanity too. Next time rod from the clean out if you find one. Fill up as many buckets as yopu can find with really hot water, dump them in the toilet as fast as it will take them.

Thanks for the answer. We may have to follow that advice as the water did not stay down for long. 20 flushes later and it was back up and overflowing again. Of course this happens right after I returned the rental snakes early as I thought I had it. Unfortunately our house is kind of a cottage and the clean out seems to be blocked in by the washer/dryer combo unit.
Oddly enough the sink vanity does not seem to be backing up. The shower & toilet are directly on the other side of the wall from the clean out. The sink is 4 or 5 feet up the wall so it may just have it's own drain. We rent this house, and I believe it was renovated DIY style. Also the pressure on the wax gasket seems to have been relieved and is not leaking anymore. At least a bit of a silver lining. Methinks it is time for the landlord's to step in!

Yep, get the LL to do this fix, its his responsiblility. Once a wax ring leaks it will leak again, the only things that reseats is my rear end.

An update,

I was wrong, the sinks will fill up, they just drain into the shower! Upon finally reaching our landlord's today, they informed us that there is a "seasonal" pump on the house, that is actually located under the house, but plugs in behind our fridge. They say this is only needed in the winter as the sludge is heavier due to the cold so the gravity needs help, but in the heat of the summer it's supposed to be fine! Anyone ever hear of a "seasonal" pump before?? The previous tenants were supposed to leave it plugged in, they did not do this, and it was never mentioned to us. Our LL's think this will fix the problem, I can only hope. Oh you, the cleanout is under the house too (or at the very least there is not one inside, maybe there isn't one at all!) Fun!

God bless the LL's. They fixed it, offered to pay for hotel while fixing it and refunded some rent for our troubles! Turns out the lines were frozen as a result of the pump being unplugged by those evil previous tenant's