Overflowing Toilet

Lift the tank lid and push the flapper down to stop the fill, then leave it alone until somebody has looked at whether the blockage is in the toilet or in the main.

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When this becomes an emergency

The bowl filling toward the rim after a flush instead of draining.
Water appearing around the base of the toilet on the bathroom floor.
A basement toilet or shower backing up while an upstairs toilet is flushed.
Bubbling in the bowl when the washing machine drains.

What a pro does

An overflowing toilet is either a local blockage or the visible end of a much bigger problem, and telling those apart is the plumber's first move. A single toilet backing up while everything else in the house drains normally points at the fixture or the branch serving it. A basement toilet backing up when an upstairs one is flushed means the main is blocked and the lowest opening in the house is where it's coming out. In two story Omaha houses with a finished basement bath, that lowest opening is usually the one nobody's looking at. A plumber checks the other fixtures before touching the toilet, because clearing the bowl on a blocked main just moves the overflow. If it's local, the toilet gets augered, and if that doesn't take, it comes off the flange so the trap can be reached directly. Pulling the toilet also shows the wax seal and the flange itself, and in older houses with cast iron closet flanges the flange has often rusted down to the point where it won't hold a bolt anymore.

Frequently asked questions

Why does my basement toilet back up when I flush upstairs?

Gravity picks the lowest exit. If the main line out to the street is blocked, everything draining from the floors above has to go somewhere, and the basement fixture is the first opening below the blockage.

Is a plunger enough or does it need an auger?

A plunger moves a soft blockage in the trap and nothing beyond it. If the water level drops slowly on its own and then backs up on the next flush, the obstruction is past the trap and needs a tool that can reach it.

What does water around the base of the toilet mean?

Most often a failed wax seal or a flange that's no longer holding the fixture tight to the floor. It matters more than it looks, because the water going under the toilet is soaking subfloor you can't see, and in an old house it may have been doing that for a while.

Overflowing Toilet?

Get connected with a local pro now.

Tap to Call(855) 321-3426

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