Rookie here, I hope I am posting this in the correct place. I am 1 year into my first home and not real knowlegable on plumbing yet. I am in desperate need of help/advice. Here is my situation:
House was built in 1941, on city sewer. 2 story cape cod with basement. About 2 weeks ago the toilet in the bath on the main floor started leaking from underneath into the basement. Called the home warranty, they sent out a (shady) plumber. He looked at it for about 2 minutes and decided there was a backup that needed snaking. It didn't make much sense to me as nothing was backing up when used, just a steady drip. He tells me that if he snakes it and finds tree roots the warranty wont cover it and it will cost me $300. So he pulls the toilet and snakes it and pulls out a piece of tree root about the size of my pinky finger (he also broke his snake off in my main while doing this). Charges me $300, puts the toilet back and bolts out of there (it was a friday afternoon).
About 20 minutes after he leaves it was back to dripping just like before. I had to leave town for the weekend so it was Monday before he came back out. Pulled the toilet again and said the flange was bad (not sure why he didn't notice this the first time he had the toilet off). So he replaces that and the drip goes away.
Since then that toilet doesn't seem to completely flush and if you flush it a second time it gurggles and backs up into the shower that sits next to the toilet. Also we noticed this weekend that when we had guests in, they used the upstairs guest bath and when they flushed it, it would back up in the same downstairs shower.
The plumbers are supposed to come back today or tomorrow but I feel certain he is gonna try to tell me I have a root problem in my main. He was telling me the last time I need to just have my entire main replaced ($5500 was the price he quoted me). But, it doesn't make sense to me that we had absolutely NO drainage problems before, then the flange goes bad, they work on it and now it wont drain at all. I cant imagine the tree root problem just exploded in the matter of a day.
Is it possible that he collapsed my main while snaking it? Could it be the root problem IS that bad? Any other ideas, thoughts, advice?
Thanks in advance, I appreciate ANY help.
House was built in 1941, on city sewer. 2 story cape cod with basement. About 2 weeks ago the toilet in the bath on the main floor started leaking from underneath into the basement. Called the home warranty, they sent out a (shady) plumber. He looked at it for about 2 minutes and decided there was a backup that needed snaking. It didn't make much sense to me as nothing was backing up when used, just a steady drip. He tells me that if he snakes it and finds tree roots the warranty wont cover it and it will cost me $300. So he pulls the toilet and snakes it and pulls out a piece of tree root about the size of my pinky finger (he also broke his snake off in my main while doing this). Charges me $300, puts the toilet back and bolts out of there (it was a friday afternoon).
About 20 minutes after he leaves it was back to dripping just like before. I had to leave town for the weekend so it was Monday before he came back out. Pulled the toilet again and said the flange was bad (not sure why he didn't notice this the first time he had the toilet off). So he replaces that and the drip goes away.
Since then that toilet doesn't seem to completely flush and if you flush it a second time it gurggles and backs up into the shower that sits next to the toilet. Also we noticed this weekend that when we had guests in, they used the upstairs guest bath and when they flushed it, it would back up in the same downstairs shower.
The plumbers are supposed to come back today or tomorrow but I feel certain he is gonna try to tell me I have a root problem in my main. He was telling me the last time I need to just have my entire main replaced ($5500 was the price he quoted me). But, it doesn't make sense to me that we had absolutely NO drainage problems before, then the flange goes bad, they work on it and now it wont drain at all. I cant imagine the tree root problem just exploded in the matter of a day.
Is it possible that he collapsed my main while snaking it? Could it be the root problem IS that bad? Any other ideas, thoughts, advice?
Thanks in advance, I appreciate ANY help.