House built in 2021.
Second owner.
Purchased 6/2025.
In the city** of Early, TX
Related negotiated a warranty purchased by seller.

Our Inspector noted an odd gurgling noise in master toilet. Thought it was a vent issue. Had the seller contact a plumber to inspect. Plumber signed off that everything was functioning as intended. Time goes on.

We notice the toilet randomly stops up. It still gurgles. Became enough of an issue to have it checked out again.

Tried home warranty first. Their plumber never checked vents. They ran a camera and found water in the line. They called it a belly in the line. Home warranty promptly denied referencing an exclusion for collapsed pipes. This plumber quoted $24,500 to correct the "belly in the line."

Couple months pass. Couple more plumbers come to assess.

Long, long story - the toilet is pulled and they ran a camera. They also drilled the headboard of the wall behind the toilet and ran a camera. The toilet is not vented at all!

So what's next?

A.Contact the city inspector and seek his advice? (Since it's a 2021 build - the inspection was likely done via FaceTime.)

B. Contact the builder and prove the house is not in compliance with code?

C. Lawyer up and have the sellers pay for it for not disclosing a known issue? (The neighbor admitted the sellers knew something wasn't right)

D. Lawyer up and have the plumber that signed off on it cover the costs of repair?

E. Circle back with warranty to see if they cover building defects but I'm almost certain that's a waste of time.

I am waiting on a quote to cut out the wall and floor to install a vent and run through the roof. I'm already out about $1500 just to diagnose.

Help OB. This isn't as juicy as a rio grande valley skid steer but it's definitely crappy…

Diagram. The hand scribbled line is the way the sewage is plumbed

This is the plumber's invoice that signed off during the inspection process

GentrysMillTX10 said:

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This is the plumber's invoice that signed off during the inspection process

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I'd go back to the builder first since you bought it from them. This is clearly a construction defect.

I'm second owner, not original

GentrysMillTX10 said:

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I'm second owner, not original

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Any idea if the original owner got a transferrable warranty as part of the purchase?

Don't know anything about the venting as I have never lived in a home where that was code. We always relied on the drain water trap to seal the house off from gas. Any bubbles were a warning of a clogged sewer line.

I did deal with a major line belly issue. We kept having to run a flex rod down the line from an accesss to clear blockages. Fortunately they were outside and not under the foundation. We finally called out a plumber who just happened to be the exact plumber the previous owners had called out to evaluate the same issue. He already had it well documented. It was not disclosed to us at the time of sale. He reported the belly and $6000 to fix. I opted to keep ridding the line periodically and switch to RV quick dissolve TP.

Eventually the belly got so bad it pulled apart the PVC and that really backed it up. I was able to rod and get the location and it was shallow enough for me to dig it up and expose it myself and repair it myself. It was extremely unpleasant work, but cost me a weekend and $150 in materials. Again, I was very fortunate to have the belly behind the house and not beneath it.

We went to our RE agent regarding the non disclosure and thought we were well within the liability window. The advise was that it would be a pain and drawn out process to try to recover and might involve a lawyer and could cost more than the cost of the repair. That is when I decided I'd do it myself once it really needed to be done.

I build houses for a national builder. A couple points:

The city inspector wouldn't have done a face time inspection. They also don't have any liability and won't likely be of any help.

The builder's plumbing warranty is probably only 2 years from the close date. If you call their office (depending on the size of the builder) and raise hell, you may get somewhere if they feel like their reputation will be hurt by this info getting out. It may be a private builder who dissolves a random LLC and establishes a new one once the development is over. There are a few investor type builders that do this, in which case you're kind of SOL.

If you're up for it, you may get somewhere with the litigation route with the seller, but this is above my pay grade.

Plumbing is really not that hard. You glue pipes together with proper fall. If you want to, you can add that vent yourself and get a roofer to come add a boot to your roof where the penetration comes out if you're not comfortable doing that yourself either. The drywall repair from adding the combination tee and vent will be the hardest part, depending on which fitting they used. Honestly, I find it hard to believe that there isn't a vent on the toilet. That would be noticed the first time someone flushed that toilet and it wouldn't make it 4 years with someone dealing with a slightly slow flush and a gurgling sound.

The gurgling sound happens from a belly in the line and isn't necessarily common, but does happen in construction. The ground gets rained on and a bobcat is usually used to makeup the foundation after plumbing is backfilled and can smash the pipe down into the bedding sand and reduce the fall of the drain. Bellies are expensive to repair, and they're really not anyone's fault per se. The plumber had it right for inspection, it rained and the foundation company made up the foundation on a passed plumbing rough.

I

Just texted you some recommendations.

Plumbing is really not that hard. You glue pipes together with proper fall. If you want to, you can add that vent yourself and get a roofer to come add a boot to your roof where the penetration comes out if you're not comfortable doing that yourself either. The drywall repair from adding the combination tee and vent will be the hardest part, depending on which fitting they used. Honestly, I find it hard to believe that there isn't a vent on the toilet. That would be noticed the first time someone flushed that toilet and it wouldn't make it 4 years with someone dealing with a slightly slow flush and a gurgling sound.

This right here is what I would do

(I have built a few barndos) add a vent and run it up a wall, worst case just vent the line into the attic and once in the attic turn it towards the side of the house and vent it at the eve to go outside, but adding a roof boot is the proper way to do it. (I would bet there is also a vent line for that sink you could tie onto in the attic) I wouldn't think this would cost anywhere near 24K to add a vent line. maybe 2-3K max. I personally would not try to make that vent tie in to the toiler drain line, I would let a plumber do it, especially if you have to bust up the concrete around the toilet (had a guy do that for me, it didnt look fun)

now if you have a bad belly and really want to fix it I would assume that would require a tunnel job then lay new pipe, depends on how far the belly goes under the slab, a plumber and tunneler would have to do this. I did a tunnel job on my old house to fix some broken joints (tree roots) under the master shower, tunnel was maybe 10-12 feet from the side of the house. Paid 10K for tunnel and fix pvc pipes, that was 6 years ago in Htown

GentrysMillTX10 said:

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Diagram. The hand scribbled line is the way the sewage is plumbed

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I would bet based on this pic they put a vent on the sink and assumed it would vent the toilet properly. I had a guy vent a small shower and sink together, what ever he did it worked fine. I would think you need to add a vent closer to the toilet, esp if there is a belly, there is nowhere for that air in the line to go right now

Is there second floor above this, or attic, to confirm they didn't place the vent in a wall to the side of the toilet for some reason, vs where you said the inspected the wall behind the toilet? I assume there isn't attic since that's not been mentioned as a point of inspection.

toolshed said:

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Is there second floor above this, or attic, to confirm they didn't place the vent in a wall to the side of the toilet for some reason, vs where you said the inspected the wall behind the toilet? I assume there isn't attic since that's not been mentioned as a point of inspection.

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dam, this keeps getting worse... lol

There is an attic. Yes the attic has been inspected in this scenario to verify what's been stated. There is no vent directly on the toilet. It's assumed the toilet is venting through the sink at this point

There may be a belly. There's standing water in the line - I saw it on camera for the second time today. Until everything is well ventilated, it's hard to know why it's standing there - at least that's what I've been told

I'm a builder and find it hard to believe the toilet wasn't vented, but I've seen some doozies in some of my own builds that make me question plumbers in general. As was stated above, a non-vented toilet just wouldn't really ever function.

This sounds like a belly to me. The gurgling and intermittent clogging is an indication of that, and the super high initial quote to fix it makes me believe that plumber thinks it's under the slab. If it is under the slab, then that's going to be tough on you. I genuinely feel for you.

Would a video of how it flushes help?

bump

No way I wouldn't go after the sellers for this. It's been handed to you on a silver platter. May be something as easy as small claims?
Edit: sorry I conflated your situation with mouthbq. Your word against theirs, not as cut and dried
I will say that getting the line jetted may blow the line clean enough that things flow correctly for a while. Snakes can punch through greasy goopy stoppages that seal right back up but jetting blows it clean. Might be better to spend a couple hundred bucks doing that every couple years than deal with fixing the belly.

Quote:

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The neighbor admitted the sellers knew something wasn't right)

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I will tell you that "knowing something isn't right" and triggering a duty to disclose may or may NOT, depending on the code, be completely different. I'd lean heavily on the former (meaning, no duty).

First, I highly doubt someone is going to sell/move over a toilet repair, even if the cost is high 4 figures. A 5 figure foundation issue, maybe, because those tend to have lasting implications, but not a toilet issue. Second, while this (from the neighbor) technically isn't hearsay, it isn't very credible. "No, he misunderstood; I was talking about..." then he alleges things like:

-- another house
-- another part of this house that got fixed
-- another part of this house that they did disclose

Or even simply, "I hired a plumber and got that fixed; I didn't have any further issues..."

I'm not suggesting you don't have a case here -- maybe you do. Maybe a good one. But don't go spending the judgment just yet. It will take a LOT more to prove and I would try to go after a deeper pocket if there is one.

Another way to fix the belly is to put a toilet in with a pump and take it thru the attic. Some are called a grinder toilet. Pretty expensive but don't have to go thru the foundation. These are used in basements sometimes. Hate this for you.

Update

The toilet hasn't ever stopped up - it just won't flush sometimes, usually the flush or two after a "heavy" flush. If it won't flush, we leave it and within 30 minutes it's good to flush. It's not slow to empty the bowl, just gurgles funny at the end of a flush. The sewage has never backed up into the tub or shower.

I will note that I filled the sinks on the vanity with water and tried to flush. The flush was slow to empty the bowl for the first time.

Does this sound like a belly or an air trap issue aka lack of proper venting?

This particular floor plan is semi common around here. I've found at least 7. There are 5 on my street but not all next to each other. 1 of these houses is for sale. I will have my realtor ask if we can get into the attic of that house and take photos of the plumbing vents. I can already tell that my shower head is on a different wall of the shower than the one for sale.

I like the idea to vent the vanity or enlarge the vent in hopes to solve my issue.

More to come!

I'm not a plumber but I wouldn't think filling the sinks with water would have an effect. They likely have a P-trap beneath them which prevents air flow anyway.

Could have been a fluke?? Who knows!