Is there a way to know if a toilet will overflow before you flush?
July 13, 2016 6:08 PM Subscribe
I came back after a few months away to find all the water dried out in my toilet and full of leaves. I am worried that if I clean out all the leaves, and fill the bowl with water again, and try to flush it, it will overflow because maybe there are leaves further in the pipes?
There are also thick brown stains I need to clean which I assume are mineral deposits. Cleaning that off will also mean flushing a lot. I don't know how the leaves got there. I am on the third floor, not near the ground. Is there a way to know my toilet will work before I flush and find out it doesn't?
There are also thick brown stains I need to clean which I assume are mineral deposits. Cleaning that off will also mean flushing a lot. I don't know how the leaves got there. I am on the third floor, not near the ground. Is there a way to know my toilet will work before I flush and find out it doesn't?
...thinking about it, if you're on the third floor I take it this is an apartment? In which case the building manager is likely to want to know that you have leaves and a dried out toilet. That's not normal, even after a few months, and could point to other plumbing problems that might be their problem not yours.
posted by tillsbury at 6:15 PM on July 13, 2016 [9 favorites]
posted by tillsbury at 6:15 PM on July 13, 2016 [9 favorites]
Response by poster: It is an apartment. I also don't have the kind where there's a tank behind the toilet. All that's hidden from me, it's just a wall. I can only see what's going on in the toilet bowl itself. So if I fill it with water to its usual level, I don't think I can check if anything is rising or not if I fill in with more?
posted by Blitz at 6:23 PM on July 13, 2016
posted by Blitz at 6:23 PM on July 13, 2016
This is an indoor toilet? With leaves in it? From a houseplant on the tank, I hope? Not, like, a tree or something, right?
There's no way the leaves would have worked thier way down the drain in your absence, unless they're on a vine growing down the vent pipe? I don't know, I'm having a hard time picturing this. Just fish out the leaves and any miscellaneous furry woodland creatures and flush the toilet. That should refill the bowl and allow you to see if the bowl will drain.
posted by Floydd at 6:25 PM on July 13, 2016 [6 favorites]
There's no way the leaves would have worked thier way down the drain in your absence, unless they're on a vine growing down the vent pipe? I don't know, I'm having a hard time picturing this. Just fish out the leaves and any miscellaneous furry woodland creatures and flush the toilet. That should refill the bowl and allow you to see if the bowl will drain.
posted by Floydd at 6:25 PM on July 13, 2016 [6 favorites]
Oh! No tank? Where did the leaves come from? Up the drain?
posted by Floydd at 6:26 PM on July 13, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by Floydd at 6:26 PM on July 13, 2016 [3 favorites]
tillsbury has it right, if you slowly pour water in the bowl from a bucket it should never get higher than it's normal level. Once the water is higher than the u bend it will drain until it gets back to it's normal level. You should not be able to overflow a toilet bowl by pouring water in it. If it is clogged and the water starts to get near the rim of the bowl, stop! Call a plumber or if you're a DIY'er get a closet auger and visit youtube.
posted by Grumpy old geek at 6:34 PM on July 13, 2016
posted by Grumpy old geek at 6:34 PM on July 13, 2016
How quickly does it fill up? If it isn't too fast then you can just use an empty yogurt container or bucket to take water from the toilet bowl and pour it down the sink in the event that it isn't draining.
Also, with the toilets at home with the water already at the regular level, a flush that doesn't drain just about fills the bowl with enough space to gently use a plunger.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 6:34 PM on July 13, 2016
Also, with the toilets at home with the water already at the regular level, a flush that doesn't drain just about fills the bowl with enough space to gently use a plunger.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 6:34 PM on July 13, 2016
Are you sure they're leaves and not debris from a sewage backup?
posted by The corpse in the library at 6:41 PM on July 13, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by The corpse in the library at 6:41 PM on July 13, 2016 [2 favorites]
A sewage backup on the third floor would be pretty remarkable, I would think.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 6:49 PM on July 13, 2016
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 6:49 PM on July 13, 2016
Response by poster: They look like dried out old leaves and clumps of dirt. I've had leaves come out of my shower drain before too (in this apartment).
posted by Blitz at 6:55 PM on July 13, 2016
posted by Blitz at 6:55 PM on July 13, 2016
Does the vent pipe on the roof have a cover? Are there trees over the roof of the house. Can kids get up to and play on the roof and drop things down?
posted by Grumpy old geek at 7:03 PM on July 13, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by Grumpy old geek at 7:03 PM on July 13, 2016 [4 favorites]
Grumpy old geek has it, I think.
When you flush your toilet it sucks air as the water goes down, and that air has to go somewhere -- up the vent pipe, as they are designed.
But your vent pipe, which you share with some other units almost certainly, got leaves in it.
Enough leaves to impede the flow of air, in fact, if not stop it -- and when that happened the air had to find another outlet.
And after you'd been gone a few days and some of the water had evaporated from your toilet, but didn't trigger a fill valve in your wall, the lowered water level made your toilet bowl the path of least resistance for air sucked in by the other units sharing your vent pipe.
And when that happened the air bubbling up through your toilet evaporated the rest of the water in the bowl, and the leaves in the pipe, no longer being pushed from below, fell down to the level of your toilet and a little below, and when people flushed, that blew some leaves up into your bowl, where air from subsequent flushes dried them out, if they were wet in the first place.
posted by jamjam at 7:36 PM on July 13, 2016 [15 favorites]
When you flush your toilet it sucks air as the water goes down, and that air has to go somewhere -- up the vent pipe, as they are designed.
But your vent pipe, which you share with some other units almost certainly, got leaves in it.
Enough leaves to impede the flow of air, in fact, if not stop it -- and when that happened the air had to find another outlet.
And after you'd been gone a few days and some of the water had evaporated from your toilet, but didn't trigger a fill valve in your wall, the lowered water level made your toilet bowl the path of least resistance for air sucked in by the other units sharing your vent pipe.
And when that happened the air bubbling up through your toilet evaporated the rest of the water in the bowl, and the leaves in the pipe, no longer being pushed from below, fell down to the level of your toilet and a little below, and when people flushed, that blew some leaves up into your bowl, where air from subsequent flushes dried them out, if they were wet in the first place.
posted by jamjam at 7:36 PM on July 13, 2016 [15 favorites]
You've been gone quite a while; I'm hazarding a ridiculous guess that perhaps something sprouted (Chia? Quinoa? Avocado? I kid.) in a damp pipe full of organically fertile material while you were gone, then dried up from lack of fresh water supply.
Or a seed flew in through a vent stack, sprouted in the biologicaly lush ooze, and put down roots?
posted by younggreenanne at 7:50 PM on July 13, 2016
Or a seed flew in through a vent stack, sprouted in the biologicaly lush ooze, and put down roots?
posted by younggreenanne at 7:50 PM on July 13, 2016
Btw: to the future if leaving home for any length of time, cover toilet bowl with Saran Wrap. (Under the seat). Prevents water evaporation and these kinds of problems.
posted by eileen at 8:00 PM on July 13, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by eileen at 8:00 PM on July 13, 2016 [2 favorites]
Remember to leave a note on the lid so you don't forget to take it off when you get back, and so any unexpected visitors (maintenance folks?) aren't caught unawares!
posted by zebra at 9:11 PM on July 13, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by zebra at 9:11 PM on July 13, 2016 [3 favorites]
Toilets are designed so the bowl will hold as much water as fits on the tank, so the first flush will not overflow.
posted by SemiSalt at 4:53 AM on July 14, 2016
posted by SemiSalt at 4:53 AM on July 14, 2016
Have you asked the landlord about this? You've mentioned this before, and plumbing shouldn't have flora growing in it.
posted by SillyShepherd at 6:00 AM on July 14, 2016
posted by SillyShepherd at 6:00 AM on July 14, 2016
You should definitely not be getting leaves coming up through your drains, and the fact that you are seeing that points to a problem with your building's plumbing, possibly a serious one. It is your landlord's responsibility to fix that, and it's in their best interest because plumbing problems have a way of becoming bigger if ignored. Even if the debris is just coming down through the plumbing vent, it could turn into a significant issue. So definitely call your landlord and tell them about this, because there's a problem with the building and it needs to be addressed.
That said, you can check to see if your toilet is flushing with a bucket. If you dump a big bucket of water into the bowl, the toilet should flush. If it doesn't drain or drains slowly, it's blocked. Using a bucket should make it easy to avoid adding so much water that the toilet could overflow—if it's not draining right, you just stop pouring before you overflow the bowl.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 8:26 AM on July 14, 2016 [1 favorite]
That said, you can check to see if your toilet is flushing with a bucket. If you dump a big bucket of water into the bowl, the toilet should flush. If it doesn't drain or drains slowly, it's blocked. Using a bucket should make it easy to avoid adding so much water that the toilet could overflow—if it's not draining right, you just stop pouring before you overflow the bowl.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 8:26 AM on July 14, 2016 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by tillsbury at 6:13 PM on July 13, 2016 [8 favorites]