clipped

Live in Arizona, by any chance? Friend used to have Oleander roots from
the neighbors hedge regularly put a shoot up the drain hole in his bathtub.
I had a hot water line break under my slab, also. Based on the water bill,
I figured about 30,000 gallons leaked out before I figured out something was
wrong. I was told the expansion/contraction of the water line against a
rock under the slab was probably the culprit, but I think more likely it was
the 90 pound water pressure from the city. After the second leak a year
later, I added a pressure regulator to the house. The 90 pound pressure
used to unscrew the sprinkler heads in my yard. Now, I'm back in Illinois
where we never seem to have those water pressure problems but unfortunately,
this year we do seem to have Arizona heat.
Tom



This is truly bizarre, and the OP seems to indicate not only a large
amount of water but a lot of pressure. No rose bush will send roots
under a slab and up under a toilet. I would suspect that there is also
a leaky sewer line and a tree adding to the trouble. If the "roots" are
truly only in the wax ring, and not in the sewer line, perhaps they are
fungus and not real roots.

We had sewer back up couple of months ago, both toilets at the same
time. Obviously not a toilet problem. Called the condo chief, told me
to call a plumber. Did so. Whilst they drilled out the main sewer line
for the condo, all the way to the other side of the street, a neighbor
stopped by and said their toilet also backing up. Also called the city
to see if main line problems reported, they said no. They had already
done a lot of work on sewer, including a new pump station down the
street about a year before. Last week there was a hang tag on the door
to the effect that the city will be working on sewer lines and we should
limit our water use. They worked on lines directly across the street.
Now, I am thinking that if there were really roots in your wax ring,
they might have come from seeds in sewer sludge that backed up and
leaked under your toilet. My brother in law used to use sewer sludge
for garden fertilizer, and got lots of free tomato plants in the deal )