Hello, ALL.

Now that I'm about ready to move out,  I know I have some sort of a
plumbing problem here.

Background: this is a _long_ ranch style house.  Bedrooms and 2 baths at
one end, and kitchen, utility room and a utility bath at the other end.

Symptoms:  sometimes failure of commodes to flush properly.
East end - - when clothes washer is pumping out, sometimes air bubbles
start burbling up into the utility bath commode.
West end - - master bath commode has recently failed to flush properly,
and sometimes when it is flushed, air bubbles start burbling up into
the other commode which is nearby in the other bathroom.

I'm having a hard time visualizing how pressure could build up high
enough to make air bubble burbles in those commodes, while there is no
"backflush" of any liquid into the adjacent bathtubs.  Although that is
a "good thing", I know I have a problem somewhere, or somewhere(s). My
first guess would have been that those burbling bubbles could only
happen if there were an obstruction in the vent "stack", but somehow
that does not seem to me to be the likely case here.

I do have one of those 50' or so long "rod-snakes" made of steel flatbar
about 1/8" x 1/2" in section around here somewhere, with a small
turnip-shaped "rooter" at the tip of it.  Although I have not have had
to use it during the 14 or so years we have lived here, I guess I
should get up on the roof and start poking down thru the vent stacks on
each end of the house??

FWIW, between the house and the sewer manhole at the back lot line,
some of the Laurel Oak and other trees have grown rather dramatically
over the 14 years we have lived here.  The one nearest the likely path
from west end of the house to the sewer manhole was pretty small when we
moved here, but now has a caliper of about 18" at 5' above the ground.
I guess I'm giving myself a good "clue" here.

Thanks in advance for any advice or insight.
- - -  JimH.

... "Never laugh at live dragons, Bilbo you fool!" - The Hobbit
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