In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
Mike Barnes wrote:

The downstairs toilet used to flush OK but now the bowl fills with
water and then takes about five seconds to drain away, the water level
dropping about 3 cm below normal and slowly rising again to about 1 cm
below normal.

It seems to me that there must be a partial blockage somewhere, and
I'd prefer to sort it out before it becomes a total blockage. Any
suggestions?

From the back of the pan the pipe turns right, goes through a side
wall, then turns right again and goes into the side of a vertical
soil stack (total distance so far about 1 metre). The soil stack is
only about a metre long, being capped just above the junction. This
unusual (and possibly illegal) arrangement hasn't given any trouble
before in the 15 years we've lived here.


You need to isolate the blockage. Do you have other toilets? What happens
when you flush them? How are they connected into the sewer?

If other toilets exhibit the same problem, the blockage is downstream
somewhere, and you need to look in any outside manholes you may have. If
they don't, you need to concentrate on the pipework which serves only this
single downstairs toilet.

Does the 'cap' on the short stack unscrew? If so, it's probably a rodding
point for just such occasions as this. Nothing unusual - or illegal - about
that as far as I'm aware.
--
Cheers,
Roger
______
Email address maintained for newsgroup use only, and not regularly
monitored.. Messages sent to it may not be read for several weeks.
PLEASE REPLY TO NEWSGROUP!