Plumbing – Why are there bubbles in the bathroom toilet and sink

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I have had a lot of really odd things happen in my bathroom this weekend and I want to make sure it is nothing too serious.

Ok so when I was taking a shower I heard the toilet bubble up. A few minutes later I noticed that my shower drain was going slower than normal.

So when I was done with my shower I took a plunger to the shower and it pulled back some hair, etc. I also noticed that when I flushed the toilet it did not want to drain quickly. I immediately turned the toilet off and then I also noticed that some of the water had backed up into shower.

With the hair I pulled out of the shower I figured I had a hair clog. I put some Drano down the shower to clear the hair and I don't have hair coming up when I plunge the shower now.

However I still have some really odd stuff happening in the bathroom. When the shower gets used for more than a few minutes, the toilet bubbles up and the shower drain slows down again. The shower will eventually drain (very slowly) and when the shower empties, the water in the toilet appears to drop until I can hear air coming in from the bottom. When I use the sink the toilet bubbles up and when I flush the toilet I hear what I assume is some bubbles coming up from the sink.

With a little research I have done on this it looks like it could be the drain pipe on my roof leaking or that my drain field is flooded (I live in Michigan and we have had a ton of rain over the last 3 weeks or so).

I guess I am wondering if both of these ideas are plausible and/or likely and if something like this warrants a calls to a plumber to have them investigate?

Best Answer

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.