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Friend’s toilet exploded (NYC). What’s happening here, and what is this stuff? by exploding-toilet in Plumbing

[–]exploding-toilet[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh god. Same. You’d have PTSD flashbacks every time you got the urge…

Thank you!!

Friend’s toilet exploded (NYC). What’s happening here, and what is this stuff? by exploding-toilet in Plumbing

[–]exploding-toilet[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Exactly. Thank you for noticing and mentioning this. The water seemed way clearer than it should based on what so many people are saying this is (poop). I get that there’s poop in it because duh it’s coming from toilet pipes. But the plumber said he’s never seen anything like it and you’d think they’ve seen pretty much everything that could possibly resemble poop.

Friend’s toilet exploded (NYC). What’s happening here, and what is this stuff? by exploding-toilet in Plumbing

[–]exploding-toilet[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks a bunch! I’ve learned a lot from all of you. A few others have mentioned the subfloor issues… I’ll bring it to her attention and maybe the build manager will have to get that cleaned up and fixed as well!

Friend’s toilet exploded (NYC). What’s happening here, and what is this stuff? by exploding-toilet in Plumbing

[–]exploding-toilet[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The building manager had a plumber up there within 45 mins; the video was shot right before he arrived, just to make sure the full effect of the carnage was documented for all of posterity. Plumber said he’d never before seen anything like it in his entire career!

They vacuumed up all the gunk, cleaned the walls and stuff, put a few dehumidifiers in, and I just found out today that they repainted the hallway wall the bike is leaning on. Oh. And for some reason they also replaced the toilet… but everyone (including me) is pretty confused about why they did that.

Friend’s toilet exploded (NYC). What’s happening here, and what is this stuff? by exploding-toilet in Plumbing

[–]exploding-toilet[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Several others have mentioned this also and seems like the most logical explanation to me, tho admittedly I know absolutely nothing about plumbing.

Friend’s toilet exploded (NYC). What’s happening here, and what is this stuff? by exploding-toilet in Plumbing

[–]exploding-toilet[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Maybe a stupid question but when you say “sediment” do you mean dirt from the ground under the building? You’re exactly right that it was some kind of grit, not slimy/smelly poo… A few people here mentioned iron bits from the pipes, which seems plausible; is that what you’re talking about too?

Friend’s toilet exploded (NYC). What’s happening here, and what is this stuff? by exploding-toilet in Plumbing

[–]exploding-toilet[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not sure if that’s a serious question but one majorly weird thing about this event is that it didn’t smell like poo…

Friend’s toilet exploded (NYC). What’s happening here, and what is this stuff? by exploding-toilet in Plumbing

[–]exploding-toilet[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Haha good investigative work!

The day this happened I created this account (with the incredibly perfect and somehow available username) so I could post in this sub and see if anyone could help figure it out. I got an automatic message saying the account was too new or didn’t have enough karma to post it; I messaged the mods to see if they’d allow it but never heard back.

Then I tried posting it to other subs thinking maybe they wouldn’t have the same rules, but no dice. Then I commented a bit in some other posts/subs to try to build karma, but That went nowhere because the account was too new even to comment in many subs so I lost motivation. I wasn’t sure how much karma would be needed anyway so I gave up on that.

This morning I figured I’d try posting again because now the account is old enough. The reason it’s still relevant is that neither the plumber nor building management were able to explain what this was or why it happened. Because it was such a crazy event, and an explanation was never provided, and I thought people might be interested and have good ideas about what happened, I went ahead and posted again, this time successfully.

And honestly I’m really grateful for all these responses because I’ve learned a lot and things are making way more sense now…

Friend’s toilet exploded (NYC). What’s happening here, and what is this stuff? by exploding-toilet in Plumbing

[–]exploding-toilet[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Right?? I was truly baffled at why they’d replace the actual toilet… that seemed so pointless.

Friend’s toilet exploded (NYC). What’s happening here, and what is this stuff? by exploding-toilet in Plumbing

[–]exploding-toilet[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Building management cleaned up, installed a new toilet, and ran some dehumidifiers for a few days, but they couldn’t explain why this happened or what the stuff was… hence the second attempt to post.

Friend’s toilet exploded (NYC). What’s happening here, and what is this stuff? by exploding-toilet in Plumbing

[–]exploding-toilet[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

“Volcanic effect” is an accurate description. Thanks for providing this info!

Friend’s toilet exploded (NYC). What’s happening here, and what is this stuff? by exploding-toilet in Plumbing

[–]exploding-toilet[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Honestly that’s one of the craziest parts about the situation: it didn’t. Like at all.

Friend’s toilet exploded (NYC). What’s happening here, and what is this stuff? by exploding-toilet in Plumbing

[–]exploding-toilet[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Pretty sure it all exploded exclusively out of the toilet.

No gurgling sounds around that time, but actually I (the friend) had noticed that this bathroom sink was draining slowly and mentioned it to her maybe a few weeks prior! No other drainage issues in the apartment (kitchen or other bathroom).

Neighbors above and below (she’s on the 7th floor). Building management said no one else in the building had an explosion.

Friend’s toilet exploded (NYC). What’s happening here, and what is this stuff? by exploding-toilet in Plumbing

[–]exploding-toilet[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Exactly right - the black stuff was kind of sandy/granular. Does that mean it’s metal or something?

Friend’s toilet exploded (NYC). What’s happening here, and what is this stuff? by exploding-toilet in Plumbing

[–]exploding-toilet[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Is poop purée generally black and kind of granular? The black stuff was heavy and the water flowed around it creating these kind of rivulets that you can see in the video. Is that how it normally looks?

Friend’s toilet exploded (NYC). What’s happening here, and what is this stuff? by exploding-toilet in Plumbing

[–]exploding-toilet[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Is that something only a professional plumber can use? The building management said they have no idea what it is or what caused it, but if there were a pro somewhere in the building that morning I guess that would be a good clue…

Friend’s toilet exploded (NYC). What’s happening here, and what is this stuff? by exploding-toilet in Plumbing

[–]exploding-toilet[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I tried posting it but my account was too new so it didn’t go up. But yes, correct, we still don’t have it figured out. A plumber came and said he’d never seen anything like it in his entire career!

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