plumbing
I noticed this dried, sprayed looking, brown/yellowish stuff on my basement wall and looked up and it’s underneath one of the toilets.
I then had someone flush the toilet and saw nothing leaking out from anywhere. I noticed a little darkness around the main toilet pipe and a few drips of same looking stuff on other pipe.
Any idea of what this is or why it happened?
Please let me know if pictures are not viewable. Thank you.
There is a clog downstream from both of these drains. If they are both at the lowest level of the house and you have a septic system, then it's conceivable that the problem is there, but you'd also see water backing up into that bathroom when you run any other showers/toilets in the house.
Most likely, the clog is in the joint in the drain lines where the shower and toilet join on their way out of the bathroom. Get a snake to fish down the drain (probably best to do this in the shower to avoid damaging the toilet bowl) and expect to go down quite a few feet before you reach the problem.
Edit: Revisiting this question, I'd agree that there's also a likely vent blockage from the bubbling descriptions. But the fact that toilet water backs up into the shower points to a drain blockage, too, and that will be easier to fix.
It seems as if you have an obstruction that may be floating around in the pipe or valve. Sometimes it obstructs sometimes it flows clear. I would start with changing the water valve. If this is the old style "gate" valve there are several things that can clog the line. I would replace it with a 1/4 turn ball valve. That will give you much better flow than a gate valve. You will need to shut down the water probably at the main. The old valve is probably soldered, but you could cut it off and use a compression type valve instead. "Sharkbite" is one such supplier. Although I have never used their compression valve, I have used their end caps and found them to work well.
If you can have someone hold a bucket under the pipe once you cut off the valve and then a second person turns on the water main to fill the bucket to purge the line of any debris. With cast iron pipes it is common to get clogs from rust build up. The rust may not pass the small opening in the old gate valve when you first purged the line.. Although you did not mention what type of pipes you have, if it's copper than you won't normally find rust obstructions..
Best Answer
I can think of three possible explanations:
The wax ring under your toilet just wore out and needs to be replaced. This seems unlikely if your house is only 16 years old; a properly installed wax ring should last 20-30 years.
Your toilet is not seated securely. This can happen if the bolts are not tight. If you can rock the toilet at all, this is probably your problem. When the toilet gets loose, the seal with the wax ring breaks. In this case you'd want to remove the toilet, fix the wax ring (or replace it with a new one) and then reinstall the toilet, being sure to tighten the bolts all the way but not overtighten.
At some point water pooled on your bathroom floor. (There could be lots of reasons for this: Someone took a shower with the curtain open, the faucet overflowed, someone tipped over a bucket, etc.) The water found its way down through the toilet flange hole. It picked up dirt along the way, hence the yellowish color.
Based on the information available, it's hard to say which of these three scenarios, if any, is the cause. If I were you, I wouldn't do anything at this point. I would keep observing: Go down in your basement once a week and see if you see (or smell) anything new near the stain. If you don't see signs of change, this was probably a one-time event, like water pooling on the floor, that you don't need to worry about again.
I'd also check to see if there still is water pooling on the bathroom floor. Check especially behind and alongside the toilet; it's possible the toilet tank is leaking, or the water supply line is leaking. But if you can't feel any water anywhere on your floor, then you most likely don't have an active problem.
You could replace the wax ring if you want. It's cheap (wax rings cost under 3 dollars) and relatively easy. But if I were you I wouldn't bother at this point because -- unless the toilet is loose -- I doubt the wax ring is the problem.
For what it's worth, I can't think of anything that could be wrong here that would result in catastrophic damage. Worst case, you have a small leak in your drain system somewhere, you caught it early and it would have to be left unchecked for months or years before it caused real damage. Best case, this was caused by a one-time event in the past that will never recur.
If you were suspecting leaking from a water supply line, I'd tell you to be more worried, because if that were to burst it could do significant damage very quickly. Not so with a drain line in this type of situation. The fact that the leak is over unfinished basement makes it even less concerning.