Toilet- Leaking from underneath

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eljefe25

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Ok, so the background:

In our basement there used to be a half bath. So the plumbing was there already.

Over the course of the last 6 months a built a new half bath.

Just about finished up last weekend. Just a couple fixtures for toilet paper holder and what not left to do.

Went away this past week for work.

Yesterday my wife was doing laundry and my leak detector went off.

Water was coming back up through the pipe under the toilet. Not a ton, luckily.

The city came out and checked the line at the city side to make sure it wasn't blocked there.

We haven't had a leak like that in about 5 months. I got into the habit of putting lye in the drains once a month because it used to happen frequently.

Last weekend when I put the toilet on. I put lye down to clean out the pipes, so was pretty surprised it happened.

So my question is two fold:

Can the seal between the waste pipe and the toilet be tight enough that if the drain does backup, it will go into toilet and not leak out? Or is that not possible? Does it only prevent leak from water going down the pipe?

2, what can I do to ensure the pipes are nice and clean so it never backs up.
 
eljefe25 said:
Last weekend when I put the toilet on. I put lye down to clean out the pipes, so was pretty surprised it happened.
Click to expand...

Please explain why you are using lye? How did you insert the lye? Are you aware that the seal between the waste pipe and the toilet is normally just a soft wax ring, that lye will eat through in a New York minute? Are you using lye to eat roots that have penetrated your sewer line?
 
When a main drain backs up it will put pressure on the wax seal and push water past it. Sounds like you need
to have a snake ran from the house to the street. If you have trees or maybe a bad pipe then there is no chance
of a "Never Back Up".
 
havasu said:
Please explain why you are using lye? How did you insert the lye? Are you aware that the seal between the waste pipe and the toilet is normally just a soft wax ring, that lye will eat through in a New York minute? Are you using lye to eat roots that have penetrated your sewer line?
Click to expand...

Should have been more clear. I did the lye before I installed the toilet.

The city suggested putting lye down the pipes once a month to ensure they are clean.

No trees near us.
 
TomFOhio said:
When a main drain backs up it will put pressure on the wax seal and push water past it. Sounds like you need
to have a snake ran from the house to the street. If you have trees or maybe a bad pipe then there is no chance
of a "Never Back Up".
Click to expand...

We dont have any trees around us. But what is consided a bad pipe?

And this doesn't happen often and just a little bit. When it does happen, it always seems to be at the same time the washer is going. Friday my wife did 4 loads, nothing happened. Saturday she started 1 load and it happened.
 
TomFOhio said:
When a main drain backs up it will put pressure on the wax seal and push water past it. Sounds like you need
to have a snake ran from the house to the street. If you have trees or maybe a bad pipe then there is no chance
of a "Never Back Up".
Click to expand...

So there is nothing 'extra' I can do to make a tighter deal? Like waxless or larger wax seal to create a tighter seal?

We had the pipe snaked a year ago I believe.
 
Do you have a bad backwater valve, or does any of your neighbors have one and you don't?

 
Also, they do have a waxless toilet seal, which is made of soft plastic. This may provide you a small bit of insurance, but you are still putting a band aid on a bigger problem. Why is the water backing up? It might be worth it to have a plumber come in and do an inspection with a camera, to let you know what the real problem is?
 
havasu said:
Also, they do have a waxless toilet seal, which is made of soft plastic. This may provide you a small bit of insurance, but you are still putting a band aid on a bigger problem. Why is the water backing up? It might be worth it to have a plumber come in and do an inspection with a camera, to let you know what the real problem is?
Click to expand...
Agreed. Ugh. The last plumber I was going to hire to fix a clogged kitchen sink wanted me to pay 500 up front before even looking. I said hell no. Did some more googling and was able to finally get it unclogged with boiling water and a snake
 
eljefe25 said:
Should have been more clear. I did the lye before I installed the toilet.

The city suggested putting lye down the pipes once a month to ensure they are clean.

No trees near us.
Click to expand...
i just snaked a drain for a guy....no trees in the yard i pulled tons of roots out of his pipe maybe there were trees there at some point..i spent a couple of hours removing the roots....another poster mentioned a back water valve.....do you have one...??????
 
20180507_105150.jpg Attached you can see the pipe and flange. The pipe has a low point to the upper left. Do I need to do anything extra for the wax ring to make a solid seal or because its wax, it should be fine
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Are you using the wax ring with the funnel in it? If so, that imperfection should not be a concern.
 
Thanks everyone. I used a sewer rod and some pequa mainline cleaner. Have everything installed again. If it happens again, i will have someone come out and send a camera down to see whats going on.
 
I've seen roots grow between a clay joint almost as big as your arm. Got a large snake wrapped around one and
had to dig it up with a backhoe and replace pipe.
 
I used to think it was like the vid in the old Roto Rooter commercials, where the snake teeth would get all the roots out to inside perimeter of the pipe. Then we once had to dig one up and replace it, one I had snaked numerous times, and when we took the old terra cotta out and parts of it broke I found numerous examples of matted roots, say 4" diameter with a 2" diameter tunnel running through it in a sort of serpentine manner. Roots get in there and then pass the word: "Flavored water! Come and get it!"
 
Brings back memories,
Had a malfuntioning French drain on a house I bought and found it had a small hole maybe .5" in diameter about 5ft from the house where a root had entered the 4" pvc drain. I dug up the offending section of pipe and not wanting to dig up the entire section of drain pipe after much hot water and some dish soap was finally able to pull a root about 35 ft long out of the pipe the center of the root was 1/2" in diameter but it had tendrils extending like a wire brush the entire ID of the pipe.
 
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