old black water, keep on rollin

[rmd]

well, the annoying leak has been upgraded to icky leak. seems the toilet on the second floor is seeping with every flush. and has been for a while.

and if doubling up on the wax ring doesn't fix it, then that will mean it's the drain. which... boy howdy, that will be a whole pile of i-love-home-ownership right there.

Comments

[frotz.livejournal.com]

I'm curious, why do you assume that doubling up on the wax ring will do it if it's not a stack problem? I've recently had cause to learn that toilets have approximately a zillion different failure modes, and in particular a cracked base is not uncommon and could be doing it. (Look very carefully around the outlet when you redo the ring.) Also look for seepage at flush time around the mail tank gasket, if you have one.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

well, doubling up on the wax ring didn't help, but also we found out that the leak happens when the tub is draining as well as when the toilet is flushed. we had looked around the tub to see if it was leaking, but the leak is somewhere after the two drain paths merge.

(i cheated and had an actual plumber in here doing leak-hunting. my initial attempts had failed to figure it out, so i brought in ringers.)

[rmd.livejournal.com]

of course, post-wax-ring, it seems to have wedged on the first solid matter pass-through event.

i hope this doesn't bode ill for it.

ETA: COMRADE, I AM PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE GLORIOUS VICTORY OVER THE FORCES OF DRAIN CLOGGERY. (the tactic for victory was time, a whole bunch of plunging, application of very hot water and dish soap (safer than caustics), and several inept amateur attempts at using a drain snake)