Unplug Your Toilet with Stuff You Have on Hand
Have you ever mentioned Murphy’s Law in connection with household emergencies? It’s the premise that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.
And isn’t it weird Murphy’s Law applies itself at the absolute worst time?
Like how your kitchen sink drain clogs when you’ve got twenty people coming for dinner?
Or how your dishwasher starts leaking after you go to bed and you wake up to a floor full of water the next morning?
Or how your toilet gets clogged with horrible, unmentionable stuff when you’ve got houseguests?
Frustrating. Embarrassing. Inconvenient. Smelly.
You need to call a plumber to get it fixed, but no matter how fantastic ServiceOne is, we are not genies who can magically appear at the blink of an eye.
Don’t despair.
While you’re waiting for the calvary (a ServiceOne plumber) to arrive, you can use these three easy kitchen staples to unplug your toilet.
Dish Soap:
We all have dishwashing liquid near our sinks, but did you know that it can be an effective, quick clog-buster?
Soap is comprised of fatty acids processed into purified oils. Those oils are mixed with alkalines. In modern times, we’ve added fragrance and antibacterials to soap, too. When all these ingredients are combined, the “soap” can mix oil and water, allowing us to use H2O to wash away grease and grime.
If soap breaks up grease and grime, it can also be effective in breaking up clogs made from paper and waste. Plus, the scent may improve the odor, and the fact that it acts as a lubricant may help ease solid material through a packed drain.
Pour about a cup of liquid dish soap into your clogged toilet and follow it with a chaser bucket of hot water.
Wait a half hour and then try to flush. Hopefully, you’ve unplugged your toilet.
Baking Soda and Vinegar:
You may have heard that pouring baking soda and vinegar down your kitchen drain will dislodge clogs. It’s true. The same method can unplug a toilet, too.
Because of their chemical makeup, baking soda (an alkaline base) and vinegar (an acid) create bubbles of carbon dioxide and water. All that carbonation can break things lose and shake things up.
To unplug your toilet, pour a box of baking soda into the bowl close to the drain. Follow that with two cups of white vinegar. Let the magic happen. Come back in 30 minutes with a bucket of hot water to flush the bubbles and the nasty stuff down the drain.
Coca-Cola
Believe it. Coca-cola works on much the same principle as baking soda and water. The carbonation, along with its acidic composition work to break up solids and dislodge clogs. The main ingredient of Coca-Cola is food grade phosphoric acid.
In reality, Coke Classic is less acidic than vinegar, but it may have more carbonation than the reaction of baking soda and vinegar due to the amount of Phosphoric acid per milliliter of liquid.
Pour a can of Coke into the toilet, and then quickly cover the bowl with a tight layer of plastic wrap to keep the pressure in.
Give the Coke 30-60 minutes to break things up, and then try flushing.
A Clog Might Be a Symptom of a Bigger Problem
It’s great that you might get some relief from plumbing emergencies by using kitchen staples, but don’t depend on temporary solutions. Find out what the real problem might be.
Did someone flush something that shouldn’t have been flushed and it’s now blocking a drain much farther down? Are there tree roots that are squeezing your pipes and blocking the passage of sewage? Do you have a pipe leak that is affecting the amount of pressure for flushes?
Call us. We’ll use advanced technology and professional plumbers to discover the real problem, not just treat the emergency! Through July, we’re offering a $49 whole house plumbing inspection.
Let us do the dirty work so you can get on with your….business.