toilet, shower problems
Our shower has backed up a couple of times during the last couple days. My husband used the plunger on the drain and it caused a big leak in the other bathroom on the floor around the toilet. Now the shower drains but will fill up when we flush the toilets. The bathrooms are back to back. The toilets sometime gurgle and bubble. Sometimes they fill back up like normal, then other times they are really low. A friend said it might be a vent problem. We’re unemployeed at the moment since my husband is just recovering from 3 surgeries so would rather not call a plumber if this is something we could do. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
The roof vent is tied to your drain syatem. It supplies the air necessary for the system to drain properly. Think what happens when you put you finger over the end of a soda straw and lift it from the glass. The soda stays in the straw.
The same thing happens with plumbing. If the drain system can’t get air it will not drain properly. Sinks will gurgle, toilets will bubble and sometimes stuff will back up.
While you can use a snake to check a vent, a garden hose probably works best.
You haven’t described your plumbing. What kind of drain pipes do you have? How old is the house? Are the sink, toilet, shower waste lines acessible in the basement? If your shower is part of a tub/shower combo, it will be very difficult to run a snake through the drain because of how the tub drain is designed. On most you have to push the snake through the overflow/pop up lever.
IIWM I wouldn’t pay a plumber until I had done everything I could to find the problem.
