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I'm so glad to hear that toilets spurting water during routine county sewer flushing isn't just a problem that my husband and I have struggled with for many years. The first time the water spewed from all of our toilets was when our children were in their toilet training years. I was so concerned that this would happen while they were sitting there, I called the county sewer office in our area. They blamed it on plugged roof vents in our house. My husband ran a hose down all of them, but none were plugged. I think that's just something they tell people. The house was new at that time and had been built to all building codes. We have had this problem many times over the 27 years that we have lived in this house. Each time it happened, we had the job of sanitizing all of our bathrooms for fear that germs from the sewer line were now out in our home where our toddlers could be exposed. Also, our family had no bathroom to use until I could get in and clean it. You can imagine the problems that created especially when our kids were little. Our children are grown and gone now, but both of them had and still have, fears about this happening. Every time it happened, there was a loud rumbling, and it often awakened them out of a sound sleep at 7:30 a.m. Apparently the only fix is to install a back-flow valve (at the homeowners expense). They will tell you that the water spurting from the toilet is extremely rare, but my daughter (in a different county) just had this same problem in their new home today. This prompted my search to this website. We feel that this is a fairly common problem that most people would be appalled to learn could happen yearly (or in some cases every 6 months) in their home. We would love to hear if there are others who have been plagued with this problem and do something to insure that our grandchildren don't have to grow up with this happening in their home.
If you don't have a back-flow valve, yes, this can/will happen. Simply have a plumber install one. Cheap fix considering the damage that can happen without one.
We have had this happen at our house, too, once a few years ago and again yesterday. We have had the gurgling sound a couple other times, but without the water spraying out of the toilets, or very little water. Each time happened when there was a city crew in the alley behind our house blowing air into a line they say gets clogged from time to time. After the first time, they said they would use less pressure and we never had it that bad again until yesterday. They said they got a new truck and would call the manufacturer to see if they could turn the pressure down. My husband said they were just feeding me a line, and they would have known how to run the truck before they purchased it. They were just in a hurry and used to much pressure. A city worker said he was going to come into my house (my husband was not home) to look at it (tracking mud from his boots through my house and then walking into the dirty water on the bathroom floor and tracking that back through my house), and said “It’s not enough to file for water damage. Just wipe it up and you’ll be fine.” Um, yeah, I’m not going to wipe toilet water all around my bathroom and toilet and call it good. Took me several hours to clean and sanitize all the areas where there was water. I find it pretty hard to believe the air and water being blown into my house is “clean” when it came up out of the toilet and my house smells like an outhouse! My kids were preschool age the first time this happened, and I am so thankful it has never happened when they were using the bathroom, but I am terrified that it could happen sometime. Our house was built in the 30s, so I will see if my husband knows if there is a back-flow valve, and if not, maybe we will need to put one in. The city crew and their boss that I talked to did not mention a back-flow valve to me, either. I do not want to go through this hassle again!
Sounds like they are experiencing sewer main issues and are jetting the mains to clear out the blockages and the pressure from the mains forces water into the lateral lines that tie into all of the connected houses.
As others have stated, a back flow should be an easy install if your sewer line is accessible.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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When I have seen this done, the water district crew was looking for illegal connections from roof rain gutter downspouts to the sanitary sewer, but were using smoke, not just compressed air.
If the water and sewer are both handled by the same agency, they probably were just cleaning the sewer with compressed air. The one I worked at for 17 years would always notify the customers before doing any kind of work, unless an emergency.
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