shower/toilet/wshingmchn/sink backing up

hi all. i live in a detached garage apartment, where i dont pay rent in lieu of being a sort of handy man. i'm pretty good with household issues, but a plumber i aint.

in short, the shower wont drain, washing machine is backing up into shower, toilet wont flush if theshower's backed up and if i plunge the toilet water backs up in the shower and sink. everything's connected, one is clogged. i dont think it's the toilet.

the problem started when i was taking a shower and it wasnt draining. i got out and noticed that when the shower was slow to drain, the toilet wouldnt flush.
this has happened once before, again without any noticable provocation. that time i plunged the toilet for a good 20 minutes and finally some blockage obviously went through, it drained immediatley as did the shower.

this time, tho--i've been plunging it for hours. the sink, toilet, and shower are all backing up. the toilet will flush once but it takes an hour before it will go down normally. shower is still clogged. now if i plunge the toilet, water plunges down but backs up in shower and sink. black particles are coming out as well. there is a laundry room out here and when the washing machine drains during the cycle, all the soapy water backs up into the shower.

luckily, no sewages has yet backed up, only clean water and black particles. i dont know if that means there's roots in the line or what. there has been no 'incident' to knowingly clogg up any of ANY of the fixtures or appliances. i'd drain-oed the sink and shower w 2 bottles.
i do not have access to a snake, but i have shoved wire down the shower hold as far as it will go and found nothing.

so, given the circumestances, it's kind of my responsiblity to fix this and i'm stuck.

what's my next move?

if i plunge one thing, it backs up in another. do i plunge everything at once, like an octopus with plungers? would one of those air=pressure decloggers work?
which fixture should i assume started the blockage?

hi sleep welcome here we have had exactly the same problem and it was only solved after a plumber came and changed the pipes underground.

Your main line is stopped up. If you have a septic tank pull the lid and check the inlet. If you are on city sewer, search for a clean out plug 3-4 inches in diameter. You need to rent a mainline snake and cable the line through the cleanout. If you have no clean out, pull your toilet and snake the line from there. But remember you need a large mainline machine, not a midsize. The line that is backed up is at least 3 inches in diameter. Other issues are the directional sweep of your clean out, if you have one. If the pipe at the clean out is filled with water, then the plug is beyond your clean out and you can unstop the line through that clean out. If the pipe is dry, the problem is before the clean out and again you will need to pull the toilet to solve the problem. Whenever a toilet is involved, it is considered sewage, not gray water. A snake rental is around $50. Depending on where you live, a plumbing call can set you back at least $250.00. So a snake rental is worth it.

If snaking doesn't work, then you need a plumber to camera the line and dig up the problem.

'to camera the line'.... ah, so that's how it's called

thanks askaplumber1st


also, welcome to the forum!

HI. For the mean time, if your not comfortable with your bathroom you can rent one for several days. I found a site where they offer bathroom rental. Try to visit their site for more info.::

Yeah, I had the same trouble at the office. When I went to plunge the toilet, the sink would backup. No matter how long or hard I plunged, the sink would backup and no water would drain from the toilet. And if I ran water in the sink, the toilet would burp large bubbles.

What I ended up trying was putting duct tape over the overflow vents in the sink and tape over the drain in the sink to form an air tight seal. Then after plunging hard for a few minutes, the clog broke free.