wits end with slow draining toilet in new (to me) house

[john nash]

Moved into a new house
It's an old graded building with two far more recent additions on the side. It has 5 floors.
The main building has two bathrooms on floors 3 and 4, with a SVP that runs into the attic room and cleverly exits (hidden) onto the roof of one of the dormers. Everything up here runs fine

One of the extensions has a loo, on first floor . The toilet here, fills and drains slowly taking nothing with it. Sink is fine.

On the ground floor, under the first floor loo behind a cover, is the main waste/sewage pipe. One branch runs into the main building and the other, up a few feet to the single loo (just above it). No venting on this branch.
This branch has a rodding port on it.
downstream, it meets another under a manhole, before running into the septic tank.

I have tried a succession of iincreasiing size plungers on the toilet, an auger (which appears to have difficulty navigating far before getting tangled), chemicals and also a re-inforced hose with high pressure water. All of these have no effect whatsoever.
I tried varying the amount of water flushing through.

I lifted the manhole and rodded back to the house, to where it meets the drop from the house.
I removed the rodding point cover, where it branches, and ran the auger up to the toilet where it becomes tangled up.

I got the cistern off, but the pan is concreted to the floor and the tiles cut around it. it may mean destruction in removal.
The cistern does have nice newish insides but looks pretty standard.

I cannot find any additional venting in the toilet, but the sink output joins the branch of the waste pipe (where the rodding point is) and I removed the sink trap to no effect.

I have been waiting two weeks for a plumber with still no appointment in sight.

Is there anything more I can do ?
If it is a blockage, then it's pretty substantial and would need the toilet coming off I feel
If it's an air-lock issue, then I am struggling to see where it can vent (i.e. it was always like it)

I have spent hours faffing with this - i learned alot about the house's plumbing but still no resolution. AND it's my birthday and ALL I WANT IS TO FIX THIS !!

 

[Agile]

Happy birthday!

 

[Agile]

I would like to see a video of it being flushed.

Do you know if it ever worked properly?

What ages lived there before?

Tony

 

[REEMS]

HI there how old would you say the toilet is, and you say you have the cistern off when you took the cistern off did you find there was a plunger type fitting with a rubber on the end of it that dropped out of the toilet syphon its about 4/5 inch long and has a dish shaped rubber on the end.
If this is what you have its called a syphoic toilet and they do have symtoms with the bowl filling up and not flushing properly.

 

[john nash]

Here is a shot of the toilet cistern - does this make it syphonic toilet ?
I didn't see anything between the cistern and the pan - when I had the cistern off.
How can I identify one of these ?

It's a shires toilet pan. No idea of fitment age. We believe the extension to be mid-70's - so maybe that old. The insides do look recent AND the cistern was held by two shiny wing nuts - in my experience these go rusty pretty quick.

The house was owned by an older couple - in their 80's. They hadn't been on the top two floors for many years and there were lots of things that were broken (bulbs out, lights, fans, et etc).

AM working on loading a video to youtube ...will post when done.

 

[REEMS]

Hi again John from the picture it dosen,t like a syphonic that looks quite a new design syphon a syphonic toilet pan is different to a standard one

does water flush from the pan if you pour a bucket of water down it, have a look at the picture the curves in the pan itself.
Andy.

 

[john nash]

youtube clip of flush:

picture of pan attached.
This looks kinda like the siphonic toilet .. but you reckon the mechanism isn't ?
Is there a sure fire way of determining it ?

A bucket tipped in steadily, raises the level by an inch or so and I can keep on tipping without a problem...

 

[Nige F]

That's a syphonic pan - the video showed the classic symptoms. As you're on a septic tankl I would remove the whole toilet ( 2+ gallon flush) and replace with a new " bog in a box" from Wickes @ under £100. The mech. in the cistern has been replaced and that's probably why the setup won't work. Remeguy is on the right track too

 

[REEMS]

Thanks Nige the symtoms sounded like a syphonic but the syphon didn,t look right hope the info helped John.

 

[REEMS]

Now i,ve had a look at the picture of the pan it looks like a syphonic pan looks loke the syphon in the cistern is for a normal toilet.

 

[john nash]

thanks guys
either a new toilet or a new mechanism - I cannot get the bits locally

 

[JohnD]

A syphonic pan, in fair condition, will easily sell on ebay, so don't break it.

People who have been lucky enough to own one prize them highly.

Keep the cistern, if matching, as well. The valve in the "throat" may be missing, but replacements are available.

 

[polesapart]

http://www.toolstation.com/shop/Plumbing/d20/Toilet+Fittings/sd2835/Syvac+Aspirator/p9124

Syphonic toilets are wonderful - fix it if you can!

 

[Nige F]

Now i,ve had a look at the picture of the pan it looks like a syphonic pan looks like the syphon in the cistern is for a normal toilet.

Indeed, the part in the cistern is a "flush valve" not a syphon so whoever put that in didn't understand syphonic pans.

 

[jeff the gasman]

Some good advice here. Get a decent plumber in and remove the silly push button valve and fit a siphon with a torpedo, as we used to call them and all will be fine.