Everyone knows how frustrating it is when you flush the toilet and it’s plugged! The water in the bowl starts to rise and your heart rate increases because you’re fearful the water will overflow onto the floor. Unfortunately, most of the time the water does leak over the edge of the toilet bowl causing a mess on your bathroom floor. If you have no plumbing skills, what do you do?
A toilet will not always unclog itself. It depends on what is clogging the toilet. If there is just an overabundance of toilet paper, sometimes that will unclog itself. Other items might not unclog that easily. A toilet plunger or toilet snake might be necessary to unplug the toilet bowl.
After working in plumbing trade for over 30 plus years, I am familiar with all kinds of plumbing issues. Recently I was searching online and found an article stating that toilets will typically unclog themselves. It’s just not true! Sure it’s possible, if it was just a toilet paper clog, but usually there needs to be some effort on the home-owners part to free the plugged-up drain.
In this article, I’m going to cover as much as I can on this topic using real life experiences, so you can walk away after reading this understanding and knowing what needs to be done.
Let’s begin!
What Causes Toilets to Clog?
Obviously, the main reason toilets clog is because too much has been flushed at the same time. Another reason most people don’t realize is that toilets and the drain can clog over a period of time.
If the drain clogs over time, that’s probably the worst case scenario as everything that is causing the clog is compacting together – creating a situation that when the problem becomes obvious, it’s that much harder to rectify.
Many things can cause a toilet to clog. Using too much toilet paper, especially cheap paper that doesn’t break down as easily. Using something other than toilet paper like facial tissues or paper towels can plug up the toilet. These items are not manufactured to be discarded into a toilet. Nor should feminine hygiene products or baby wipes be flushed, even if they claim to be flushable.
If you flush any type of garbage, that can easily cause a blockage. I know some people will try to flush cuttings from the kitchen that should be thrown into a garbage bin, not a toilet.
Of course, there are other items that find their way into the toilet out of curiosity like small toys or other items that children decide they want to see get swept away in the toilet bowl.
Aside from cleaners, I wouldn’t put anything into a toilet, unless it is toilet paper, poop or pee! Everything else is at risk of clogging up the toilet or drain thereafter.
I should also add that if you don’t have enough water coming out of the tank into the bowl when flushing, that too can be an issue. I know some of us try to conserve water, which is great, but for getting rid of what’s in the toilet, it might not be the best time to reduce water consumption.
When you flush your toilet, gravity takes control and with the help of water whisks, your waste gets flushed away into the drain which leads out of your home into the city sewage system.
You should be giving your toilet the best opportunity to do its job properly by having the water filled up in the tank to the maximum. When at maximum capacity, the chance of everything getting from your toilet to the city’ sewer with just one flush greatly increases.
Otherwise, you could end up with the drain clogging up somewhere further down the line in your home.
Where Do Toilets Typically Clog?
Toilets will typically clog in the p trap of the bowl or the drain underneath the toilet. Sometimes the clog will be just out of sight in the toilet bowl and other times, it’s further down into the drain. Nine times out of ten though, it’s in the p trap of the bowl.
Inside the bowl between the water in the bowl and the bottom of the bowl where it meets the floor is a p trap. The p trap holds water so sewer gases will not rise up into your bathroom.
Because of this p or s shape, it can clog up fairly easy when too many solids are flushed at the same time. It could even be a build-up over time at the toilet flange where one item got stuck inside that connection and with flush-after-flush, more toilet paper among other things attached to that location, eventually clogging it up.
This same situation can happen in the 3” drain underneath the toilet as there is usually a 90-degree bend there where fittings and pipe are connected. That is another ideal location for items to accumulate over time.
When toilets and drains clog up in this manner, they just don’t unclog themselves and action needs to be taken to remedy the problem.
Ways to Unclog a Toilet
There are a few tried and true ways to free up a clogged toilet drain. Here are my go-to ways with one bonus way to unclog a toilet that not many homeowners know about. Yes, I will share it with you here.
The most common way to unclog a toilet is by using a common plunger. When placing a plunger into the hole of the bowl and pushing downward forcing water into the drain forcefully, this is usually good enough.
Sometimes it takes a few tries to loosen whatever is causing the problem. One tip I can give you is when you are using a plunger, make sure you don’t lift it up out of the hole while you are plunging. Keep it pressed firmly against the bottom of the bowl while pressing downward then let it expand back to it’s beginning form. Repeat, as necessary.
Make sure when purchasing a plunger, it will work on the make of toilet you own, whether it’s an American Standard or Koehler or whatever brand. Years ago, any plunger would work on most toilets, now unfortunately, that’s not the case.
The next step after using a plunger if that doesn’t work, is you might have to break out a toilet snake. These plumbing tools are used to reach further down into a toilet drain.
Toilet snakes are long coiled wire. You place one end into the bowl directing it into the drain. Once inside the drain slightly while pushing from the other end, you start to turn the snake.
As the snake turns, it feeds its way further down the drain until it hits blockage. Once it hits the blockage, it’ll spin and free it up, opening up the drain. There are times when the snake can’t unclog, but most of the time this is enough.
There are other successful ways homeowners have unclogged toilets. I know people try coat hangers which is kind of like using a snake except instead of turning, you are jabbing and poking hoping to free things up.
Other things you can try is boiling a large pot of water and pouring that into the bowl. I have heard of others using Drano, but I am not really sure if it’s worth spending the money on that when it comes to a toilet drain.
There’s one other spot in some toilets that will cause your bowl to act like it is plugged up. This is my bonus tip as mentioned previously.
Some toilets come with a venting hole in the bowl. This little hole allows the toilet to flush properly. If this little hole happens to get plugged up, your toilet won’t flush properly and you will think the drain is plugged.
To identify if you have one of these venting holes, here’s what you do. Stand in front of your toilet with the seat up. Look straight down into the bowl. If you have one, it’ll be just above the water level in the bowl on your side of the water – so towards the front of the bowl, not near the back of it.
If you do have one of these, it’s worth taking a coat hanger or something similar that will not break off and see if you can poke it down into the hole and try to pull up debris.
Toilet paper and other things can plug that vent hole up and they need to be dug out of it to fix it.
If all else fails, you might need to take the toilet off the flange to inspect further. You can then determine if the clog is in the toilet bowl or the drain below the toilet.
What Can You Pour Down a Toilet to Unclog it?
Pouring something down a clogged toilet is not always the best option. Seeing as the toilet is clogged what happens, if you pour a large container of boiling water into the bowl and it doesn’t unclog?
Well, then you end up with even more water to contend with.
I would always recommend trying to unclog a toilet without pouring anything into it. If it looks like it’s draining slowly, then maybe you can pour a bit, but I would still refrain and use a plunger instead.
How Do You Unclog a Toilet When Water is High?
This is a great question to answer after the last section. If you’re starting out with a bowl full of water, you can’t really stick a plunger or snake into the bowl without it overflowing.
If you have a wet/dry vac or commonly called a shop vac, it’s time to break that out and suck up the water.
If you don’t own a shop vac, then use a pail or cup to scoop water out. Whatever you can do to get most of the water out will help you get the job done that much easier.
Make sure to leave some water in the bowl. You want some water to help flush out whatever is clogging the bowl once you free it up with a plunger or toilet snake.
Will Toilet Paper Dissolve in a Clogged Toilet?
Toilet paper is manufactured to disintegrate once it gets wet. It’s not an immediate thing – it takes time for this to happen.
Toilet paper will fall apart when wet however, if there is a large amount of toilet paper clogging a toilet it doesn’t really have the freedom to dissolve.
Think about it, if it has nowhere to go, it won’t disintegrate or dissolve until the clog is freed up and there is a bit of movement.
If you have toilet paper just sitting in water, then yes, it will dissolve over time. In this case however, dissolve means breaking down into such small particles that it appears to have dissolved.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I want to point out an important part of this article.
When trying to unclog a toilet, do your best to do so without pouring liquids into the bowl as this will only make the problem worse.
You should also know that sometimes when a toilet gets clogged, if you don’t fix the problem completely, you risk the toilet clogging up again in the near future.
I trust I was able to help you out with the information provided above. Good luck!
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