Critical distance /Venting Help

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Greggo

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Hello to all. Years ago when I built my house I did all the rough and finish plumbing. I did a good job ( home run manifolds, baseboard heat etc) but for ONE thing. I did not vent the second floor toilet correctly.

I came up the main vertical 3" drain for the toilet and branched off a wye , then an elbow , short piece to the toilet flange. The toilet has never had a good flow. ( did not realize this till all the walls were up and finished.

Under the toilet on the first floor the kitchen cabinets were already installed.


So my question is do they make a toilet that can overcome the bad venting issue. Toto? maybe

Thank You guys for any help!!
 

Tuttles Revenge

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Its almost never the venting that is causing the issue. Toilets don't really need a vent in the way that other fixtures do to maintain a trap seal.

I usually can't give advice on how bad plumbing rough in installations affect the fixtures since the work I do is never installed that way. BUT.. I had a bathroom installation that I had designed with a rather tortured route to get horizontal wet venting to work. In our case, the toilet drained, but the tub wouldn't and I was really freaked out that my plumbing design was to blame and I'd be on the hook for a total remodel. So I built the entire plumbing waste and vent system in our parking lot on pallets. Had a toilet and tub installed. Nothing I did, including blocking all the vents would cause the symptoms until I blocked the drain downstream. I found a clean seal test ball had been deflated but left in place in the basement. Once removed the entire system worked perfectly

I would venture a guess that its a clog in the drain or the toilet itself.
 

Greggo

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Tuttles Revenge: Thank You for the reply. When I was studying the plumbing manuals I had there was a lot of info on critical distance from a fixture to the vent line. When all was said and done and the walls and cabinets were in I came to the conclusion that I should not have come off the main line with a wye. Theres never a good swirl in the bowl.Clogs once and a while ( 20 year old American Standard low flow) but still never a good swirl. The wife wants new cabinets so if the problem is just the toilet then that saves me a ton of work .
 

John Gayewski

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Bad venting can cause a clog that causes slow draining. While the venting itself isn't directly causing thr slow flow trap siphonage can cause crud from a trap to get placed into lines and then buildup. There's an animation of this somewhere on the great interwebs.

But yes a toilet's trap fills itself slowly after the siphon is broken in the flush cycle. I would look a pulling that toilet to see if something is stuck in either the drain or the trap itself. Otherwise it's just a crappy model of toilet.
 

Greggo

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Thank You John for the advice. (Crappy model of toilet) no pun intended lol. I was thinking of going with a Toto Drake / Any recommendation s
 
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