The damn toilet

[Zaphodsotherhead]

Been in the new house for six months - all fine and dandy.

On Sunday night I had an episode of D&V (migraine, probably) and the toilet backed up. Okay, fair enough, it took some punishment.

Now I've poured boiling water down, used washing up liquid, bleach, I even bought a Luigi toilet plunger-thingie, practically guaranteed to clear any blockages...

...and it's still blocked. Not completely, water (and 'stuff') will go through eventually, but toilet roll just ends up plastered to the bowl. Next door had some concreting done in their garden last week - how can I tell if any of that has got down the foul drain? No other problems with drainage of anything else.

And what do I DO? I've only got one toilet and guests arriving later in the week!

You need to get on to your water company if you think your neighbour may have damaged the drains. D&V doesn’t block toilets!

I agree, I think the D&V is a red herring. I wouldn’t take that into account at all tbh.

I'm no expert but you could lift the drain cover outside and see if it's free flowing there and if it is you know the problem is within your toilet pipework.

I'm not 100% certain that it's the work next door though, King. We all share one main drain and surely all the other houses in the row (there's four of us, the work was done at the first in the row, I'm second) would also be suffering?

I also wonder if the cement wouldn't totally block the toilet?

It's an old fashioned high cistern toilet, with a very shallow U bend. I am just getting twitchy because of guests arriving soon - I spent ten years with a toilet that had to be flushed with a bucket in my rented house - I thought those days were behind me!

Lift the manhole which should either be on your property or next to it. If it is backed up then you most likely need to contact which ever company in your part of the world attends to the drains. They are normally fairly quick to respond to blockages. Alternatively, have a poke around with a set of drain rods.

I guess if they’ve gone through the drain then the water will slowly drain in to the surrounding soil. Give them a ring and see what they say. We had a drainage issue and our supplier ( South Staffs) had someone out the same day to check.

Thank you. I never thought of the manhole. It's not on my property, I think it's in the road outside, so I will have a prod around that and see if there's any sign of backing up there. I don't have any drain rods now (left all that behind when I left the other house!).

Put a carrier bag over the head of a mop, tie it on securely and use it as a big plunger. The toilet at my old house was a bugger for blocking up, the flush was absolutely crap, the mop thing worked every time.

We had a similar problem. It was caused by a rubber washer in the soil pipe disintegrating. It was stopping loo paper from going down. We checked the drains first and they were fine. Ended up having the soil pipe investigated and once the washer was replaced, it was fine.

I think we have conversed on the Whinge thread, Janet about this - the mop and bin bag is on my list to try later today (when the latest..ahem...'effluent' has sunk to a workable level).

I've also bought some kick-ass drain unbunger and sought the advice of a local handyman, who said it didn't sound as though there was a problem with the drain (mostly because all my neighbours would have the same problem), and it is likely the toilet itself.

We do the mop thing. It always works.

If I do the mop thing and it works I am going to be so disappointed in my £11.99 Luigi. It looks like a high tech sex toy and makes very impressive noises...

We had this problem and it was caused by roots growing into the cracked soil pipe. Stop putting more chemicals down the toilet and have it investigated properly. Do you have house insurance? It should pay for a camera investigation and repair.

I do have house insurance (of course!) but I don't think they are going to arrange for a camera investigation of a shared pipe that nobody else is complaining about! Or be able to do it before my guests arrive.

Mop and bin bag are in my immediate future.

And I haven't put any chemicals down yet. Just washing up liquid and hot water. Saving the fuck off chemicals for later.

Oh and bleach.

It won’t all be shared, and part of it will be just yours. Our issue was caused by tree roots too.

Ours was tree roots and nothing would fix it, we just had to leave it to slowly drain until the man came out to get rid of the roots.

Could you put a long rubber glove on your hand and see if there is anything blocking the toilet? I know it’s gross but if there is a chunk of Lego or something in there that dc have ‘accidentally’ dropped in you can fish it out.

If not, my first port of call after the mop would be a local plumber. In a weekday as weekend call outs are dear. Can you decamp to your mums house til then or use a bucket. I’ve done that myself in the past. Not ideal but heyho I’m too poor to pay for extortionate call outs!

If he can fix it great. If it’s anything serious he finds you can then call the insurance. I try what I can myself/with tradesmen first, then if I have to call insurance last as your premium goes up the following year.

Try washing up liquid then bicarb soda, let it sit and then pour warm/hot water down. My toilet in the en suite did this and eventually it cleared, not straight away though I may add!

The toilet in our last house was a fecking nightmare for blocking. Combination of a totally useless flush combined with an external drain pipe as a soil pipe.

The only way to unblock it was what was known as 'doing a Herriott'. There was a roll of bin bags kept in the bathroom especially for this reason.

Have you tried filling it to the rim and leaving it? Hydrostatic pressure can be a pretty good unblocking measure.

‘Doing a herriot’

OMG I just laughed out loud 🤢

Doing a Herriot is the best thing I've read in a long time. You win the internet @12mileride

The mop and plastic bag has always worked for me

You haven't changed toilet roll per chance?

Hi is the toilet in the bathroom? Check if you can by running water in Bath or sink if the whole system is blocked the level of water in toilet should rise. If it all goes away see if it goes into a grid outside and if that's working OK.
If grids working OK then it's just the toilet may be the mop/ Heriot type solution.
If grids blocked then check if kitchen grids working water should go down and away as usual.
If everything blocked then call your water board investigation and clearing will be free if the point where the problem occurs is either off your property or where more than one property is served by the pipe.
If the manhole in street is blocked its certainly the water authority.
Just to further complicate matters if the outside grid is only connected to roof Drains then could be a separate system where rainwater goes to a river and only foul goes to sewage works. This is most likely on modern property.