My Toilet Downstairs Bubbles When Taking a Shower Upstairs

Lowest Drain

• Your toilet, along with any stand-alone showers, that sit in the lowest level of your house have the lowest sitting drains in the whole house. This means when there is a problem with the house’s drain system, the problem will manifest itself in these drains first. Sinks and other plumbing fixtures have drains that are not flush with the floor, so the same problem takes longer to manifest in their drains. The bubbles that form in your toilet’s drain can indicate a problem with the septic or sewer drain line, or with the house’s vent pipes.

Sewer Drain Line

• The sewer drain line connects all of the drainpipes in your house to the municipal sewer system, and the septic drain line connects to your house’s septic tank. All of the waste water in your house’s plumbing system must flow through the sewer or septic drain line. Clogs might form in the sewer or septic drain line when materials such as grease, hair and other debris clump together, collect on the pipe’s walls and eventually cut off the flow of waste water. The bubbles in your toilet bowl might be an early warning sign of the problem, which eventually would result in waste water flow out of your plumbing fixtures’ drains.

Check Cleanouts

• The sewer or septic drain line has at least one cleanout that you should see between your house and the street or septic tank. Sometimes the cleanout caps become covered with vegetation or dirt you must clear. If you see water coming out around the cleanout cap, then the drain line definitely has a clog. Even if you do not see water flowing out around the cap, you need to remove it using either a pipe wrench or a socket wrench, depending on the type of cover. With the cover removed, you can see if standing water or debris are inside the cleanout, which also indicates the presence of a clog. In the event you find that the drain line is clogged, you need to contact a plumber to have the clog removed. With septic tanks, sometimes the buildup of water can result from a full tank you need to have emptied.

Plumbing Vent Pipes

• All of the drainpipes in your house should eventually connect to a vent pipe. If you walk far enough away from your house, you can see the vent pipes coming out through the roof. The vent pipes allow sewer gases in the drainpipes to flow safely out of the house, and they maintain a balance of air pressure in the pipes as some air flows out of the plumbing system along with the waste water. You may inspect the vent pipes from the roof, shining a flashlight down them to see if there are any obstructions. You may remove clogs and test the vent pipes by shooting water down them with a garden hose.