This situation is perplexing for most people who do not respond to these incidents on a daily basis. What the home owner did, in this particular case, was remove the toilet from the flange and attempt to cable the line. He met no resistance and did not resolve the problem.
The single most relevant piece of information to tell where the problem of having sewage back up into the basement is, is understanding why it will not stop when no water is being used.
If sewage continues flowing into the basement when water is not being used in your home, the problem is coming from some place other than your sewer line.
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| Sewage backing up into the basement resulting from a failed city sewer. |
What had taken place for this person, is some bricks in the city's brick lined sewer had fallen from the wall of the sewer. The fallen brick had created a dam just downstream of the man's sewer tap (the point at which his sewer line ties into the city's sewer). When water use, upstream of this man's sewer line had been high, water did not make it over the dam before flowing up the man's residential sewer line and leaking out of the sewer from under his toilet.
This is in fact one reason back water valves exist.
A back water valve is installed on the residential sewer line. Its' purpose is to stop sewage from the city in the event the city sewer fails.
In this case, the customer paid for the service and was instructed to call the city. The city responded and reimbursed the home owner for having the situation investigated and reported.
