Plumbing question

AlistarWills · Oct 31, 2019

So I have something weird going on and can’t seem to figure things out. I have a 2 story house. When the downstairs toilet is flushed, one of the upstairs toilets will sometimes let an air bubble gurgle out of the bowl. I’ve checked all the vent stacks and they all are drawing air on a flush. Anybody got experiences or ideas?

Tug Tide · Oct 31, 2019

I have found this forum extremely helpful in the past. It’s filled with pros who generally seem to agree when problems are posed.

https://terrylove.com/forums/index.php

TIDE-HSV · Oct 31, 2019

Has it always done that?

AlistarWills · Nov 1, 2019

It has not. I thought the vent stack valves had gotten so covered in dust (venting in the attic) that it was no longer pulling air. Now that I think more about it, we originally were curious as to why the water in the bowl was pulled down in the upstairs toilets when the downstairs toilet flushed. Now it “burps” for lack of a better term.

TIDE-HSV said:
Has it always done that?

PacadermaTideUs · Nov 1, 2019

Not a plumber, and I’m totally speculating here, but is it possible that the drain lines for upstairs fixtures are not directly vented? In other words, can it be that the upstairs lines feed into the downstairs lines “pre-vent”?

TIDE-HSV · Nov 1, 2019

AlistarWills said:
It has not. I thought the vent stack valves had gotten so covered in dust (venting in the attic) that it was no longer pulling air. Now that I think more about it, we originally were curious as to why the water in the bowl was pulled down in the upstairs toilets when the downstairs toilet flushed. Now it “burps” for lack of a better term.

Well, there's just about got to be an obstruction, if it's just now started. A plumber can run a camera in the system and see. Also, if you're into DIY, fiber cameras which will mate to your laptop or smartphone are pretty cheap...

TexasBama · Nov 1, 2019

It seems when the bottom toilet flushes, the water seal on the toilet upstairs is being broken which means its pulling a slight vacuum, so there's some sort of obstruction between the upstairs toilet and the roof vent. Or, it's possible that flushing the bottom is increasing the pressure in the vent to cause air to break through the upper water seal. If you have one of those roto-rooter thingies, you could run it down the vent line on the roof and see if you find an obstruction.

AlistarWills · Nov 4, 2019

My vent stacks are in the attic with those valve things on them. We have a metal roof and didn’t want to punch holes in it for the vents.
There’s no way anything has gotten down in them.

TexasBama said:
It seems when the bottom toilet flushes, the water seal on the toilet upstairs is being broken which means its pulling a slight vacuum, so there's some sort of obstruction between the upstairs toilet and the roof vent. Or, it's possible that flushing the bottom is increasing the pressure in the vent to cause air to break through the upper water seal. If you have one of those roto-rooter thingies, you could run it down the vent line on the roof and see if you find an obstruction.

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