Mysterious Disappearing Bowl Water !!

[thomas neverdone]

Hello all-
I have an issue about my toilet bowl not filling after flushing. I know this forum has many good discussions of similar problems but believe me, I did my homework and read them all before posting but none help explain or solve my dilemma.

Background: About 2-years ago I had to replace my bathtub and in so doing, needed to pull up the toilet and later reinstall it. When I reinstalled the toilet, I found that the bowl would not fill. As the tank filled, the bowl supply water just flowed out and over the weir. When tank was done filling, the bowl was left with a small puddle no higher than the height of the bowl outlet. Clever handy man that I am, I checked fore-aft level on the rim and discovered a significant out of level condition (house is very old, maybe 150-years or so and plumbing improvements may have been done ~1960's), so I proceeded to loosen the floor bolts and shim the toilet to level perfection and the bowl filling problem vanished. I enjoyed happy flushing with a full bowl for about a year and half, when I noticed quite suddenly that my newly painted living room ceiling started to blister and bubble and the area of blistering spread far and wide. Evidently, in my smartness when I leveled the toilet back a year or so ago, I must have broken the wax seal which allowed small amounts of water to spit out and saturate the wooden floor (beneath the linoleum) and this went undetected by anyone until the below ceiling slowly turned to suspended oatmeal. Breaking the wax seal also (evidently) allowed air to enter and break the siphon action, thereby allowing the bowl to fill properly every time.

After pulling the toilet and blowing fans on the saturated underlayment, beams and sheetrock I reinstalled the toilet with a new wax ring after carefully shimming/checking level in all directions before squishing the wax and tightening down. Once again level perfection had been achieved however, now once again the bowl refuses to fill !!

Tried to figure this all out for weeks when I noticed that approximately 2-minutes after flushing, a certain amount of gurgling can be heard somewhere in the system, at which time I can slowly add water manually to fill the bowl. I have snaked the waste pipe - no obstructions felt; I have dropped a chain down the stack - no obstructions felt; also added an AAV to the adjacent sink drain hoping to break any vacuum that may be created; installed a new toilet (Kohler Wellworth) - no improvement; also just finished running an 1-1/2" line from the 3-inch waste pipe (attached to a glue-on saddle) through the wall to an attic space (the saddle is located adjacent to the elbow attached to the toilet floor flange). Had high hopes for the saddle mounted vent line - but it made NO difference in the bowl filling situation.

I am totally lost and hope someone might explain WHY my toilet bowl water is being drained away as fast as it enters.

Any ideas?? and thanks for any input.
Tom

 

[WorthFlorida]

Does the bowl fill with water and two minutes later it somehow drains when hear the gurgling or it never fills? Just to touch all bases, the refill tube that attaches to the top of the overflow pipe, does it run with water into the overflow to fill the bowl? The gurgle sound, is it from the toilet or somewhere in the plumbing?

 

[Sponsor]

 

[thomas neverdone]

No, the bowl never fills. The water drains out as fast as it pours in. And yes, the refill tube is firmly attached to the overflow tube. Also just installed a new Korky fill valve, so I know everything topside is correctly positioned and in proper working order. The gurgling I described is more like a slow glug-glug-glug....and I really can't pinpoint where it is coming from, most of the pipe is buried in the ceiling. It somewhat reminds me of the same glugging you hear when quickly pouring water or gasoline from a poorly vented container - yet I now have vents all over the place (stack, AAV under sink and vent line into the attic). As mentioned, when the glugging stops I can refill the bowl manually; before the glugging stops all water is drawn immediately out.

By the way, I should add that I removed the new Kohler Wellworth which flushed terribly and put back the older 3.5 gallon Kohler Northline which creates a beautiful swirl when the bowl is full and flushes great.

 

[WorthFlorida]

I know you added a AAV and it didn’t help. It seems that there is another siphon going on down stream but proper venting should prevent it. Have you checked the vents at he roof that a critter or bird is not inside the vent pipe. Run a garden hose down the vents. If all this fails it maybe time to have it scoped out with a camera.

 

[thomas neverdone]

Yes Worth, I ran the garden hose from the roof down the stack, poured a sizable volume of drain cleaner down there and dropped a heavy chain down there also. Nothing indicated any obstructions here.

 

[thomas neverdone]

I took advantage of Worth's suggestion to have the toilet drain line scoped but the local prices seemed ridiculously high. So I ordered a cheap eBay underwater camera (borescope/endoscope) for $17 to see what I could see. It worked surprisingly well. I taped the camera to a snake and pushed it down the pipe. Discovered there was no obvious blockages however was able to see that the pipe is 1/2 full of water due to pipes being sloped backwards. So I guess during the flush the pipe remains full for an extended period and explains why siphoning occurs and pulls all the fill water out of the bowel. Its an old house with sloped floors and doubt the 1960's renovation was done properly and possibly also help explain why my new 1-1/2 vent line attached by the glue-on saddle did not allow any meaningful siphon breaking. This backward plumbing cannot be corrected without major interior destruction and rebuilding, so what to do? Keeping mind that that when the wax seal was broken and all seemed to flush/fill great, I think I will attempt to add another smaller vent line by drilling into the top collar of the elbow adjacent to the floor flange. Don't know if I should just drill and tap for a 1/2"NPT nipple or should I drill and glue in a 1/2" PVC nipple and run a new tube up into the attic ? Perhaps 3/8 would be sufficient. Thoughts on this idea (or how-to) would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.