Will Pressure Assist help Marginal Plumbing??

[gajetjock]

OK... here goes.
Subject is our upstairs bathroom (3rd of 3; other two on main floor). Toilet has never really flushed right (even with just water), although the sink and tub both drain fine. Doesn't act like clogged, but bowl fills up and drains very slowly (may flush ok a couple of times after whole system has been sitting for a few hours). I have always suspected faulty design (not enough slope to horizontal runs, too many turns, insufficient vent?). Drain pipe for that bathroom runs about 10 feet horizontal, then down to first floor, then into main horizontal (under slab) drain to the septic tank.

Original toilet was generic. A couple of years ago, in an attempt to solve the no-flush problem, I installed an American Standard Cadet3 RightHeight Elongated (2.13" trapway / 3" flush valve / MaP 1000 gm / 1.6 gpf). However, new toilet did not help! So I then installed the new toilet in our master bath downstairs, and soon found it was a VAST improvement over the original toilet; zero need for plunger vs plunger about half the time with old toilet. So the problem upstairs seemed to not be a mediocre toilet.

Later had a plumber confirm the first horizontal drain line for upstairs bathroom holds about a 1/2 inch of water due to insufficient slope, and our main drain tube (under the slab) also tends to hold some water for the same reason. Stupid homebuilder.

So anyway, the plumber recommended a pressure assisted toilet for upstairs. Do you think this might work, given a high quality pressure toilet and sufficient water pressure??

Thanks for your help.

 

[Terry]

I think you would be just as well off with a gravity toilet with the 3" flush valve.

It will flush faster and with more water,
especially if you hold the handle down.

I have removed pressure assist toilets that didn't work very well and replaced with a good gravity for a better result.

Fixing the plumbing would be a good solution too.

 

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[gajetjock]

Terry
Thanks for the reply.

As I mentioned in original post, the "high performance" 3 inch flush valve model I tried in the upstairs bathroom made no difference, where as the same toilet made a HUGE difference in our downstairs master bedroom.

Could you recommend a different brand of 3 inch flush valve that might work in our upstairs situation, when the American Standard wouldn't?

Does a 3 inch flush valve gravity have that much more "punch" than a pressure assisted?

Thanks again...

 

[Terry]

I would normally use a Toto Drake if there is a problem with the flush.

Those have worked for me.
Even better then the Gerber Ultraflush with pressure assist.

We run into this every once in a while.

 

[Redwood]

I some instances I have seen problems get worse with a pressure assisted toilet.

One that comes to mind was a supermarket that had a sag then a elbow in the line the water from the pressure assisted toilet they decided to intall actually erupted out of the lav sink and floor drain when the water hit the resistance of the sag and elbow even though the line was not clogged.

 

[hj]

toilet

Unless the line stays almost full of water it had nothing to do with the flushing of the toilet. There may be a problem with the line, but that little bit of water is not causing the problem.

 

[gajetjock]

H.J. --- Thanks for jumping in.

Would you mind elaborating on what you think my problem might be?

 

[Redwood]

It sounds like you have a line clog.

 

[hj]

line

We co not have enough information to even make a guess. I would have to be there to see the actual conditions.