Unclogging a toilet with hot water
What to Do When Your Toilet Won’t Unclog
posted by ifoundlina Category: Blogs
We rarely think about toilets until something goes wrong. When our toilet malfunctions or clogs, it can be more than a minor inconvenience, especially if we don’t have a plunger. Keep in mind that a severely blocked toilet could interrupt your household completely.
Although clearing the blockage is frequently as simple as plunging the drain, you might need to run an auger through your plumbing.
Moreover, some clogs might be far down the pipe or extremely hard to remove that you’ll require Pompano Beach Plumbing Services. Fortunately, these tips will help you unclog your toilet.
Plunger
While this tool might appear basic, it remains the best way of unclogging a toilet. We recommend all households to have this tool and preferably one with a flange because they work best to unblock toilets.
When using this tool, you need to place the plunger in the toilet bowl and push it down gently. The first push is simply to eliminate the air. Take care not to push forcefully, otherwise; you might splash dirty water on yourself.
Once you have a good seal, pump the plunger down and up forcefully while sustaining the seal. Finally, pull the tool up sharply while breaking the air seal. You’ll notice the water rushing down the drain. If this hasn’t fixed the blockage, repeat the steps until the clog loosens.
Vinegar and Baking Soda
When your toilet won’t flush and you don’t have a plunger, you can turn to non-toxic household cleaning aids: vinegar and baking soda. You probably know that vinegar and baking soda are great at cleaning numerous surfaces, function as great deodorizers, and are helpful in keeping our drains running smoothly.
However, these household cleaners also work when you need to fix a blocked toilet if you don’t have a plunger. We recommend you add a cup of baking soda to your blocked toilet and wait for some minutes. Next, pour two cups of vinegar slowly into the toilet.
Vinegar and baking soda will typically react to form bubbles, so ensure you pour carefully and slowly to prevent the toilet water from overflowing or splashing. Allow the baking soda and vinegar mixture to work for a couple of minutes.
You’ll need to flush your toilet to establish whether the clog has cleared. You might need to repeat the process until the clog clears. The clog will clear when your toilet makes a fast suction sound and drains naturally thereafter.
Hot Water and Dish Soap
Heat up a gallon of hot water on the stove and pour some dish soap into your toilet while the water is heating up. When the water is extremely hot, but not boiling, pour into the toilet carefully. Wait for 10-15 minutes while the dish soap and hot water soften the clog.
Once you do so, the toilet will unclog and flush freely. Alternatively, you could use hot water and shampoo from the sink if you wish to clear your toilet without leaving your bathroom.
The Snake
For about $25, you can purchase a toilet snake. You only need to purchase it once and you’ll avoid chemical use. You can thread the handy device and then wind it around until you release the blockage. While this can get a bit messy, it’s better than using your hands. This method is particularly beneficial when the clog is deeper than the bowl itself.
If this approach doesn’t work, try again and contact certified plumbers. Don’t use a clothes hanger as a substitute because it can scratch the toilet bowl’s porcelain surface severely.
Household Bleach
Similar to soap, household bleach helps break down the waste. The procedure resembles the one that involves dish soap. Simply replace the solid or liquid dishwashing soap with 2-3 cups of bleach. After one or two minutes, pour one cup of powdered soap.
Wait 10-15 minutes and flush your toilet. You’ll discover this approach is more efficient for a very clogged toilet.
Contact a Plumber
While this approach is simple, it’s probably the easiest and most reliable way of unclogging a stubborn toilet. The best thing about hiring Pompano Beach plumbers is that we have everything we require to tackle even the worst blockages. Moreover, we’re more affordable than you think and we’ll be done in a short time.
Most of us have dealt with clogged toilets at one point or the other and while it’s easy to assume a plunger will do the work, you might not have one at the time. Therefore, it’s important you implement other means of unclogging your toilet. If you don’t know where to start, consider these tips.
How to Unclog a Toilet Without a Plunger—7 Ways to Fix a Clogged Toilet
When Plunging Doesn't Work
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It’s never an ideal situation: A quick trip to the bathroom followed by a single flush and, boom, you’re dealing with a clogged drain or—much worse—a nearly overflowing toilet.
If you find yourself without a plunger or if using a plunger doesn't work, consider your unclogging options before hiring a plumber. There are a number of ways ways to take care of a toilet overflow or toilet clog, many of which require nothing more than the items you already have in your bathroom or kitchen cabinets. Read on to learn how to fix a clogged toilet (and be sure to wear protective gloves).
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Heat Wave
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When you notice a nasty clog, your best bet is to fill a pan with hot water. Heat it up on the stove or use the tap, but don’t let the water get to boiling point. Pour it down the drain and let it sit for a few minutes to see if it loosens the clog. You’ll know if your efforts were successful if you see the water start to drain. Then, give the toilet a flush or two. In many cases, the hot water is enough to break up whatever is causing the backup.
Related: How To - Clean Any Appliance
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Dish Duty
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If you need to kick the unclogging process up a notch, borrow some dish soap from the kitchen and squeeze a generous amount, about a 1/4 cup should do, into the toilet bowl. Let the soap sit for 5 to 10 minutes so it has time to move down the drain and reach the clog. Then, add hot water (again, not boiling water) to the bowl and give it some time to sit. In most cases, the dish soap will act as a lubricant and grease the clog in the toilet drain to get everything moving again.
Related: 13 Lazy Cleaning Tricks for a Spotless Home
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Fizzy Fix
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It’s time to channel what you learned in elementary school science! If your toilet bowl is already filled to the brim, either empty out some of the water or be prepared for a little overflow. Next, pour one cup of baking soda and one cup of vinegar down the toilet drain. When the vinegar and baking soda combine, the natural chemical reaction will bubble up and loosen the clog.
After about thirty minutes, follow up with some hot water and see if it drains. If it does, you're good to go. If it doesn't, repeat the process once more.
Related: 10 Ingenious Home Uses for Baking Soda
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Brush Battle
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This may seem a little unpleasant, but if you’re really in a bind and there’s no plunger in sight, grab a toilet brush and angle the bristles down the drain. Pumping up and down a few times should be enough to loosen things up so the clog clears in no time. (If you want a plunger handy for your next clog, here are our recommended plungers.)
Related: 9 Home Repair Remedies to Borrow from Your Medicine Cabinet
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Helping Hanger
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If you don’t have access to a drain snake, you can fashion your own using a wire coat hanger from your closet. Simply unwind the hanger so that it’s completely straight with the exception of the hook.
Then, wrap a small rag around the hook to help prevent any scratches or damage to the porcelain and, while wearing rubber gloves, gently angle the hanger down the drain until you find the clog. When the water starts to drain, flush the toilet a few times to clear it out.
Related: 9 Clever Things You Can Do with a Wire Hanger
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Bathroom Bomb
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Don't run out to buy Drano, create your own DIY de-clogger instead by mixing together the following ingredients: 2 cups baking soda, 1/4 cup Epsom salt, and 8-10 tablespoons of dish detergent (add one tablespoon at a time). Pour the combination into individual muffin liners, then let them dry and harden overnight. The next morning, drop one into the toilet bowl, add four cups of water, and let it sit for a few hours to see results.
Related: 7 Surprising Pantry Items Naturally Clean and Freshen Your Home
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Vacuum Valve
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Last resort: Rent a wet/dry vacuum from your local hardware store—do not, we repeat, do not try this with a regular vacuum. First, use it to empty the water from the bowl. Next, wrap the hose in an old rag to create a seal, then stick the wet/dry vacuum a few inches down the drain. When you turn on the vacuum, it should suck out the clog. Again, don't forget the rubber gloves!
Related: 7 Ways You're Vacuuming Wrong
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what to do at home, how to clear the blockage yourself
Clogged toilet - what to do at home and how to clean it? A clogged toilet is like a natural disaster - it occurs suddenly, requires immediate action and turns the life of the household into a real nightmare.
The vast majority of people immediately begin frantically digging through the phone book in search of the coveted telephone number of the ZhEK emergency service. But hopes for brave and fast plumbers begin to melt over time - utilities are not very in a hurry to help. In this regard, one has to think about independent measures to eliminate the blockage and resume the usual way of life, without going to the neighbors “out of need”.
First you need to figure out why there was such a blockage that could block the normal passage of sewage through the pipes and what to expect from this situation.
Content
- 1 Types of blockages
- 2 Why there are blocks
- 3 The most common methods for cleaning the toiletant
- 4 Cleaning with chemicals
- 5 Mechanical methods of cleaning
- 6 When a challenge is necessary for plumbing
- 97 Prevention and precautions
Types of blockages
- The classic situation is that human biological waste along with flushed water does not pass into the sewer pipe, but pours out .
This indicates that your toilet is clogged. An extremely unpleasant situation that should not be allowed
- A more problematic case is when drains, instead of going down the usual route, suddenly begin to pour out through the drain hole in the bathtub and sink . Most likely, this is not your fault at all, but the riser was clogged with neighbors from the upper floors. To understand the problem, you need to interview the neighbors and find out if their toilet is clogged. If it turns out that it is the riser that is clogged, then only qualified plumbers who have permission to intervene in the operation of your sewer networks will help to clear the blockage.
Why Clogs Occur
- The most common cause is clogging the toilet with too much toilet paper and feminine hygiene products, or getting completely unexpected objects into it: rags, toys, etc.
- Incorrectly installed toilet bowl. During installation, a certain angle of inclination of the toilet bowl to the riser must be maintained, as well as the optimal distance from the riser to the toilet.
- Lack of a drain pipe or valves that equalize the pressure in the pipe when draining.
- Ill-conceived toilet bowl design. It even happens, because now handicraft industries are a dime a dozen. Non-professionals may not know the ins and outs of making a properly functioning toilet.
The most common ways to clean the toilet
Hot water
If there are no special tools at home, the toilet is clogged - you don’t know what to do, you can try the option with hot water. You will need to bring about a bucket of water to a boil and immediately pour it into the toilet. Pour at a right angle and quickly to build up pressure. If you see that the water is gradually starting to leave, you can add another bucket of water to enhance the effect. Small blockages are very well cleaned using this method.
Cleaning the toilet with hot water is the easiest way to deal with clogsImportant: Even with such rather simple manipulations, extreme care must be taken not to burn yourself.
Soda
Every housewife has soda and it helps us out in many situations. It will come in handy here too. You just need to pour half a standard pack directly into the toilet. Gradually, the blockage will dissolve under the influence of alkali.
Chemical cleaning
People have long been accustomed to using ready-made solutions in all areas of their lives, and manufacturers are successfully using this. Household chemical stores offer a fairly wide selection of specialized tools for cleaning pipes and toilets. They are presented in the form of liquids, gels, powders and granules. There may be disposable packages and large containers designed for several times. These products perfectly cope with the problem, performing also a number of other functions:
- Disinfect sanitary ware to be cleaned.
- Eliminate unpleasant odors from sewer pipes.
- Keep pipes clean.
- Have a preventive effect.
Most common brands:
- Tiret.
- Mole.
- Domestos.
- Tofix.
- Regrinding
- Mr. Muscle.
Important: When using chemicals, you must strictly follow all the rules specified in the instructions so as not to accidentally burn and damage the plumbing. Rubber gloves are a must.
People who are intimately familiar with chemistry as a science know how to clean the toilet at home using various acids: acetic, hydrochloric, formic or sulfuric. However, such aggressive solutions can damage old pipes in the house.
Mechanical cleaning methods
How to clean a clogged toilet without using chemicals? For this, mechanical cleaning methods are suitable, which imply the presence of certain devices.
Plunger
This device is recommended for everyone who has a toilet. Its design is simple: a rubber hemisphere is fixed on a wooden or plastic handle.
With simple and shallow blockages, the plunger copes with a bang. It happens like this:
- The toilet should be filled with a little water, so that it covers the rubber cup of the plunger.
- The plunger is positioned so that the hemisphere completely covers the drain hole.
- With a confident and strong movement, the plunger is pressed inward and returned to its original position.
- These movements must be performed until the result is achieved.
The plunger seems to suck out parts of the blockage from the depths of the toilet bowl until it is completely removed.
Cleaning the toilet bowl with a plungerCleaning the corrugation
If the toilet bowl is attached to the riser using a corrugated pipe, then the question of what to do and how to eliminate the blockage in the toilet can be solved by simply cleaning it. The pipe can be easily removed and, if there is a kind of plug in it, remove debris. After cleaning, the corrugated pipe is put in place.
Rubber hose
This method can be considered not only mechanical, but also hydrodynamic, since the hose creates a pressure of water and acts with high temperature.
It works like this:
- One end of the hose is attached to a hot water tap.
- The other end is lowered into the toilet as low as possible.
- Hot water is dispensed with strong pressure.
This method is also good in combination with chemical cleaning.
Plastic bottle
When a blockage suddenly appears in the toilet - not everyone knows what to do and how to eliminate it, especially if you do not have the necessary experience. If special devices are not stocked on the farm, you can use the recommendation of craftsmen. Take an ordinary plastic bottle with a volume of 1.5-2 liters. Cut off the bottom, and twist the neck well. Insert the bottle into the drain hole with the cut down and follow the same movements as when working with a plunger.
Plumbing cable
Such a device is a rare guest in ordinary apartments, because it is considered a professional tool for plumbers. But if one, fortunately, is still present, then a sharp nozzle or a piece of thick wire (if necessary) must be fixed to one end of it. This design is immersed in the toilet until it stops and the handle is turned clockwise. The cable can even reach a very distant blockage, after which it is recommended to clean the system with one of the special tools or use hot water for this.
Using a sewer cable to deal with blockages on your ownWhen you need to call a plumber
If you know perfectly well how to clear a blockage in the toilet yourself, but all the methods have already been tested, and the result has not been achieved, then you still have to wait for the plumber.
There is a situation in which a plumber needs to be called immediately. This is when the water in the toilet continues to come, despite attempts to clear the clog .
So the riser is clogged below the level of your floor. When the upstairs neighbors continue to drain the water, the sewer will overflow the edges of the toilet bowl and end up in your apartment. Only specialists can solve such a problem, they know how to clear a blockage in the toilet bowl and riser.
If you are interested in how to clean the toilet from urinary stone, then we have an article on this site on our website.
Mains water pressure ratings are listed in this resource.
An overview of water filters can be found at this address http://okanalizacii.ru/santeh_vodoprov/filtry/kakoj-vybrat-filtr-dlya-ochistki-vody.html. Nowadays, they are becoming more and more necessary.
Prevention and precautions
Having figured out what to do if the toilet is clogged at home, you need to say what rules when handling plumbing should be followed in order to prevent unpleasant situations with toilet clogging.
Prevention and proper maintenance significantly reduces the risk of blockages.
- Never throw foreign objects into the toilet bowl. If by chance you or a child dropped something there, you should try to remove the item immediately.
- Do not throw food leftovers, even liquid ones, down the toilet. Fats from food gradually accumulate on the inner bend of the toilet bowl and at one “perfect” moment can form a tight plug.
- Children should be taught from infancy how to use the toilet and should not be allowed to throw toys down the toilet.
- If the toilet is being renovated, it is advisable to carefully cover the toilet so that the remains of construction debris do not get into it.
- To prevent blockages, you can periodically use products specially designed for this purpose. They will keep the pipes clean. When working, you must strictly follow the manufacturer's instructions.
- Old, rusty pipes will be a constant cause of blockages, because debris accumulates faster on their loose inner surface. To protect your apartment from a sudden outpouring of sewage, you need to change the pipes to newer polymer ones.
Those who have already experienced the horrors of a clogged toilet once, as a rule, take precautions more seriously and use the toilet strictly for its intended purpose.
How to remove the clog in the toilet at home using improvised means?
Think you can deal with blockages on your own? You are not mistaken. You can fix the problem without a specialist in many cases. If you fail, it's never too late to call a plumber.
Anna Zalesskaya
Getty Images
Almost always blockages occur at the joints, bends and transitions of pipes, you should look for them in these places.
Contents of the article
What can cause a blockage and how to understand if it can be dealt with?
Long hair from combs, hairballs and dust washed down the toilet after household cleaning, food waste, cat litter, foreign objects and rags, bags, pads and tampons that accidentally fall into the toilet are very common causes of blockages.
If the sewer system has failed, that is, the toilet bowl does not flush, you must first understand where the “plug” has formed, in the local or central sewerage system, and then act. It can be either a light blockage that you can deal with on your own, or a more serious problem that will require a specialist to solve.
If the blockage is not serious, then the water will drain slowly and badly, but still. To understand this, pour about 1 liter of water into the toilet bowl and check its level after half an hour. Just do not press the drain tank button, as there is more water, and it can flood the floor in the bathroom. If the water drains at least a little, it means that not everything is lost, and the water ends up in the sewer. If nothing has changed, but at the same time, water drains normally in the adjacent sink or bathtub, most likely the blockage is in the pipe at the outlet of the toilet bowl. When water does not drain anywhere, it’s bad, the problem may be in the sewer system of the house, and you can’t do it with your own hands.
In other cases, there are quite a few solutions, but we will talk about the simplest and most affordable ones.
Hot water
This method is great for wood cat litter blockages. If there is a blockage, heat the water on the stove without letting it boil, pour it into a bucket and pour it sharply at an angle into the toilet bowl. Leave for a few minutes to see if this loosens the blockage. When the water begins to drain slowly, it is better to wait a while and then pour another bucket of liquid. In many cases, hot water is sufficient to clear the blockage. Here you can also connect a plunger to speed up the process.
Dishwashing liquid
If you want a quick cleaning effect, take some dish detergent from the kitchen and squeeze about 1/4 cup down the toilet. Leave the product for 5-10 minutes so that it has time to drain into the sewer and get to the blockage.
Then pour hot water (again, not boiling water) into the bucket and let it stand for a while. In most cases, dishwashing detergent acts as a lubricant and objects stuck in pipe bends begin to move in the right direction.
Sizzling mixture - soda with vinegar
Soda allows you to partially dissolve organic dirt and fats, which will help to quickly eliminate blockages. If the toilet bowl is already filled to the brim, pour some water into the basin, then pour one glass or half a pack of baking soda, trying to push it as deep as possible into the pipe, and after that, pour a glass of vinegar there and wait for the reaction. After about thirty minutes, pour 2 liters of hot water and see if it flows down the drain. If so, everything is fine. If this does not happen, repeat the process again.
Toilet brush
Not the most pleasant way, but if you are in a really difficult situation and there is no plunger in sight, take a toilet brush and place it as deep as possible in the drain hole.
