Ask Me Help Desk - Weird plumbing emergency

I am a widow raising a daughter, and I am getting used to some of the easier aspects of home repair, but something happened this a.m. that is just weird. Any help would be most appreciated. I cannot afford to call a plumber.We have two bathrooms in our place. This morning I went to the back one, used the toilet and took a shower with no problems. A half hour or so later, my daughter went to do the same and came to tell me that there was water around the back toilet. Figuring it needed to be plunged I went back and checked it out. The water level in the bowl was normal and it flushed fine.

Then I went to the front bathroom to grab a few towels we keep for dirty jobs, and there was water all over the floor and heading for the hall. This toilet is only for company, and hasn't been used in several days. It also flushed fine.We put towels on the floor around the back toilet and I went to work mopping up the front bathroom. Then we checked all over the house: showers, sinks, the washing machine -- it's just the two toilets.

Next I decided to call the city water department to see if they had been flushing the lines or something and it was pushing water up through the system (but just the toilets? I don't know anything about how the water system works).The city sent out a crew very quickly. They opened something up in the front yard (had to break it open because they said it hadn't been opened so long it was stuck). They took a look inside and said everything was fine, nothing backing up, so it had to be the toilets (both toilets, simultaneously?).Before they left, they asked us to go flush both toilets again. When we did water came out of both toilets, not out of the tank or bowl, but out of the base at the floor.

Does anyone know what is going on? Have the seals on both toilets broken at the same time? I don't know what to try next, but we need to have one working toilet soon.

Changing the wax rings is not a big deal if indeed that's the problem and it does sound like it, or the bolts that hold the toilet down may be loose. Check these videos out and see if they help and post back what you find.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ae0TzEAzDZw

You have a clogged main drain... those seals aren't meant to hold standing water in, only to keep the brief flushes in as they are normally dry at that point.

Both toilets hit the main drain... those toilet flanges are just at a lower level than the sinks and other drains which is why you saw it there first.

You need to call someone to snake the drains.

Not what you want to hear, but not everyone knows how or where to rent one and how to use it correctly.

If you have a basement, and if your toilet waste pipe is PVC, there might be a 'cleanout' that is a threaded plug with a square shape on it to put a wrench on. Then you let horrible goop go all over you although you try to put a bucket right under it at the same time, maybe your daughter can hold the bucket.

If cast iron, call a 'rooter' person.

Thank you so much for your reply and the video links, talaniman. I don't think we can manage changing the seals. We can't even get the little valves behind either toilet to budge, so we can't turn the water off. And the houses here don't have a water shutoff for the whole house like we're used to. They have something out by the street under a metal plate that, I am told, takes a special tool to manipulate. I think changing the seals is going to have to wait until we can afford a plumber.

Quote:

Originally Posted by joypulv

If you have a basement, and if your toilet waste pipe is PVC, there might be a 'cleanout' that is a threaded plug with a square shape on it to put a wrench on. Then you let horrible goop go all over you although you try to put a bucket right under it at the same time, maybe your daughter can hold the bucket.If cast iron, call a 'rooter' person.

Thank you for your reply, joypulv. We don't have a basement. The house is one-story on a slab. [daughter lets out big sigh of relief]

The threaded plug with a square on top (cast iron) is out in the front garden. It's what the water department workers broke the top off of yesterday so that they could check the water flow. They said that everything looked fine at that end, the water wasn't backing up out there.

And they said to just stick a coffee can over the broken pipe top. That way if things ever did get clogged up out towards the street, the water would rise up into the garden rather than backing up into the house. I don't know about that; I worry about bugs and snakes and things getting in through there. But I put something over the top until we can afford to get a plumber out to fix it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by smoothy

You have a clogged main drain... those seals aren't meant to hold standing water in, only to keep the brief flushes in as they are normally dry at that point.Both toilets hit the main drain... those toilet flanges are just at a lower level than the sinks and other drains which is why you saw it there first.You need to call someone to snake the drains.Not what you want to hear, but not everyone knows how or where to rent one and how to use it correctly.

Thanks for your reply, smoothy. We found yesterday that if you didn't do anything else using water close to when you use the toilets, they don't leak. I think that fits in with what you are saying. Something has gotten clogged up under the house. I took a shower yesterday, then my daughter turned on the shower before she used the toilet. So the pipes were already full to the clog when she flushed the toilet, forcing the water back up. Is that the idea?

Then she turned the shower off and the pipes began to clear, so that, after I checked things out and flushed the toilet again, the water level was down enough to handle it and the toilet didn't leak. Then after we cleaned up, she took a looong shower, during which the water department folks arrived. So when they asked us to flush the toilets the water was forced up again.

Today we're spreading our showers out further and making them short. We absolutely cannot afford a plumber right now. I have enough savings left for us to make it for about two more months if we are very careful and I must find work by then. Yesterday we found videos on YouTube with folks showing how they dealt with main line clogs, and some of them used an enzyme drain cleaner to break down hair and grease. Looking at the videos and reviews elsewhere, it seems like this works for a lot of people, and it's not very expensive. So we're going to give that a try and see if we can keep the problem under control until we have sufficient funds flowing in to tackle it.

Thanks everyone for your help.

Yes, that's what I was meaning in my post. Given your current situation... try one of those main line cleaners. Worst that can happen is nothing will change.

Also while the thought is in my head...do you have any trees close to the house? Wondering about roots being the cause, particularly if your weather has been dry where you are located. Tree roots will seek out and find water in such circumstances.

Quote:

Originally Posted by smoothy

Yes, that's what I was meaning in my post. Given your current situation... try one of those main line cleaners. Worst that can happen is nothing will change.

Also while the thought is in my head...do you have any trees close to the house? Wondering about roots being the cause, particularly if your weather has been dry where you are located. Tree roots will seek out and find water in such circumstances.

We saw videos by folks with tree root problems. The weather has been pretty dry for the past month, and we have a number of trees around the house, and we are not doing much watering just now, trying to keep expenses down. But I thought a root clog would be more likely in the front-yard-to-the-street part of the pipe, and the water department crew said that was running clear.

If the problem is caused by tree roots, the drain cleaner we bought won't help.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sehahn

We saw videos by folks with tree root problems. The weather has been pretty dry for the past month, and we have a number of trees around the house, and we are not doing much watering just now, trying to keep expenses down. But I thought a root clog would be more likely in the front-yard-to-the-street part of the pipe, and the water department crew said that was running clear.

If the problem is caused by tree roots, the drain cleaner we bought won't help.

Not completely but it might help clear some of it (but the roots would still be there. but as you have seen you can get a mesh of fine roots that act like a strainer can catch enough to cause a clog. Some trees are notorious for this, others not so much... if the financial impact won't be to great.. you can also follow up with one of the products meant for tree roots, if that's the problem, it will eventually clear, but all it will do is kill some of the existing roots, they won't go away immediately.

if that doesn't work...you can ask around to your friends and see if any of them by chance own a snake. You might luck out.