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We have an American Standard toilet (I'm not sure of the exact model, but it looks something like that Champion 4). When first installed, it worked great and it was indeed a one flush device. Beautiful it helped greatly.

Now the water goes through, but there is nearly zero pressure so the rest doesn't go through without a plunger...

I'm thinking that this type of toilet has additional pipes that allow the flush to function. i.e. the water doesn't just pour in the bowl, I think it is poured through another pipe and that pipe may have some residue in it prevent the normal flush functionality.

I've been looking for information about that toilet mechanism and I'm probably really bad at searching for it... Do you have any details on how to properly clean such a toilet pipes? Do you have an schematic that would show us how the pipes are actually laid out?

Here is a picture from the side:

enter image description here

In the picture, I added a red line which represents the top of the waterline in the bowl.

As we can see on this picture, there could be a pipe between the water taken and the flushing pipe coming from the bowl (just over the red line toward the left side of the picture).

Also there seem to be a small pipe between the larger pipe just under the bowl and the one going to the ground.

All of that makes me think that there could be debris clogging those pipes.

Just in case, I had a plumber come by and he was not able to fix it. He checked the pipes and they're clean, the water flows as expected, no clogging down there. So that's the toilet which has a problem. It was also snaked, but that's probably old technology on a modern toilet which doesn't help...

As per the answer below, I got muriatic acid and ran the process once to see if it would clean the toilet. In my case, just once was enough to get the toilet to flush like normal again! I needed a funnel, though, because the flushing mechanism is such that I just couldn't reach the hole without pouring the acid all over the place. So I bought a 3 set and I duck-taped the wide one (red) to the long one (blue) for the perfect funnel.

enter image description here

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    Did the plumber take the toilet out, and snake from both sides and look down the drain? This doesn't make a lot of sense. A leaky flap might be culprit too but toilets take 5 mins to take off and 10-15 to put back on...
    – DMoore
    Commented Nov 15, 2020 at 20:33
  • @DMoore, The plumber did take the toilet off, but he did not try to snake it from the bottom up to the bowl. He checked the pipes below with a camera and I flushed the other toilet and the water went through no problem... However, he did not look inside the toilet pipe(s?) with that camera. And I've also been puzzled by this for a while now.
    – Alexis Wilke
    Commented Nov 15, 2020 at 20:36
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    I believe that what you think are extra "pipes" are just thickened areas of ceramic for some additional strength. On the bottom right, for example, that's not a "short-cut pipe" from the bowl exit to just before the drain stack. If it were, that would bypass the trap and allow sewer gas to leak into the bowl and stink up your house.
    – FreeMan
    Commented Nov 15, 2020 at 21:24
  • @FreeMan, I can agree with the small one. I can imagine that adding some support is a good idea. That being said, it doesn't change the fact that the flushing never sent water directly in the bowl. It would show a form of "sucking" effect. So I'm thinking that there must be some hidden pipe. Maybe I should check by removing the tank or at least the system over the water release hole and see where that goes with our small snake...
    – Alexis Wilke
    Commented Nov 15, 2020 at 21:48
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    One thing to try: Put some liquid dish detergent (or pine cleaning liquid soap) in the tank (as it's filling), flush, add more to the tank as it refills, let sit overnight (or longer if you have alternate facilities that work) flush a few times and repeat. That might loosen up anything "debris" like. Also try contacting the tech support / customer support at American Standard. I know for my new toilet there were some non-obvious adjustments to the flapper to make it behave better, but that was "out of the gate" not "worked fine and changed behavior." Those were common enough to find in a FAQ.
    – Ecnerwal
    Commented Nov 16, 2020 at 2:07

1 Answer 1

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Given all of the steps you have already done I would go the cheapest and most effective route. Get a couple gallons of muriatic acid (big box).

Pour about a 1/5th of the container down the tank drain - directly. Let it sit 3-4 hours. Flush and repeat as many times as you can. You need ventilation in the room, you will not be able to use the room at ALL during this process, and this will effectively destroy anything blocking any "holes/drains" in your toilet. I have effectively spent $5-10 and restored 50+ toilets to like new condition using this method, some not draining at all.

Wear gloves and goggles and wash off anything that gets on your right away. Do not leave these containers around small children.

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  • I have done the same usually after just a few cycles the holes clear up. CLR can also be purchased by the gallon and will do a similar job of clearing calcium, lime or rust. I have done that with the water off , but had more consistent results with muriatic.
    – Ed Beal
    Commented Nov 16, 2020 at 17:28
  • Would the acid attack the plastic/rubber parts found in the tank? Should that also be done in the bowl? I put my snake in the tank hole (where the water drains on a flush) and found nothing, it came back clean and barely wet. I could put as much as 1.5 meter before it got stuck...
    – Alexis Wilke
    Commented Nov 16, 2020 at 18:48
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    @AlexisWilke - Yes it will that is why I said you go directly down the drain of top basin. (so you drain water at top and open flapper and pour there). You will actually notice things come out especially on cycle #2. I run 4 cycles minimum even if it seems to be cleared up. I just redid a toilet at my house (American Standard circa late 60s) and I ran it through 8 cycles. This thing barely barely flushed... 4 years later this thing is like new.
    – DMoore
    Commented Nov 16, 2020 at 18:54
  • I finally found the time to pour acid down. I got some funnel that would large enough at the top and long enough to reach the hole (the flushing mechanism is 2 or 3 inches tall so that required a really long funnel.) I ran the process once, it stank big time and first flush worked perfectly! It's like new again. Thank you so much for the info!
    – Alexis Wilke
    Commented Dec 1, 2020 at 4:33
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    @AlexisWilke you did it the right way. I would have given it another round but yea it smells awful. Think of this too - not only does your toilet work now but the inside is the cleanest it will be in a while.
    – DMoore
    Commented Dec 1, 2020 at 17:56

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