How to unblock a toilet

How to unblock a toilet with a plunger

Our Home Expert, Chris shows the best way to unblock a toilet with a plunger in the video below:

If you have a toilet plunger handy, you can also follow these five simple steps to help unblock your toilet. No plunger? No Problem. Skip to the section below where we detail how to unblock a toilet without a plunger.

1. Gather your equipment

Firstly, you’ll need the following tools and supplies to help you fix a badly blocked toilet:

• A plunger
• Rubber gloves
• Old towels or newspaper

2. Protect the surrounding area

Use old towels or newspapers to soak up spills and protect the bathroom floor. Make sure to also protect yourself with rubber gloves and wear old clothes.

3. Make sure the toilet won’t overflow

Before you start unclogging, it’s important to ensure the toilet won’t overflow. You can do this with the shutoff valve in the pipe that comes out of the wall behind the toilet.

Turn the shutoff valve clockwise gently but don’t try to shove or over-tighten it. If it doesn’t want to move, spray a little oil on the valve to loosen it.

If you have an older toilet you’ll need to deal with the float as you won’t have a valve. To do this, take the lid from the toilet tank and use something to keep the float upright, so the tank can’t keep refilling when flushed.

4. Check you’ve got the right plunger

While a plunger is often the simplest way to unblock a toilet, it can often be ineffective simply because you’re trying to use a sink plunger to unblock a toilet!

A toilet plunger should also be completely submerged in water to work, so if the toilet isn’t full of water, you may need to add some using the bath, or sink, and your handy bucket.

Tip: Soften the toilet plunger by soaking it in hot water for five minutes before use as this should make a better seal.

5. Create a vacuum with the plunger

Place the plunger under the water, completely covering the pipe. Slowly and firmly push down to create a seal, then pull up to create a vacuum to dislodge the blockage. Repeat this activity, increasing the speed with which you work, and expect to continue for at least 15 minutes.

With any luck you will find that the water drains and the blockage is either sucked out or dissipated. If the toilet drains, but the blockage doesn’t go away, fill the toilet with more water, back to its standard level, and then start plunging again. Stubborn clogs often require several rounds of plunging.

4 easy ways to unblock a toilet without a plunger

Few things are more annoying than a badly blocked toilet – but a blocked toilet when you don’t have a plunger to hand is definitely top of the annoyance list.

Begin by putting down newspaper around the toilet to catch any spills or splashes and pulling on your rubber gloves.

Once this is done, you will need to collect a few household items that will help you unblock your toilet:

• Rubber gloves
• Old newspapers
• A bucket
• Washing up liquid
• An empty plastic bottle
• A coat hanger
• Baking soda and vinegar
• Cling film

How to unblock a toilet using washing up liquid

Unblocking your toilet with washing up liquid should be the first way you try to unblock your toilet without a plunger. To do this:

1. Pour around half a mug-full of washing up liquid into the toilet, dripping it around the bowl so that it forms a ring around the waterline and then criss-crossing the water itself.
2. Leave for half an hour to dissolve the clog somewhat.
3. Fill a bucket with hot water and pour it into the toilet from about waist height.
4. Leave for a further ten minutes and then flush.
5. To ensure the material that has clogged the toilet is completely dispersed, immediately put a mugful of baking soda and two mugfuls of vinegar into the toilet bowl.
6. Let this bubble away for at least thirty minutes to break up any remaining material that is clinging to the sides of the toilet and then flush again.

If nothing seems to have changed, watch out for the water level dropping. If that happens, repeat the process again with the washing liquid and hot water and you should find that it dislodges the rest of the obstruction.

How to unblock a toilet using cling film

Using cling film to unblock a toilet definitely has a mixed reputation. Its success seems to depend on the water pressure in your toilet system.

If you have high water pressure, this works really well, but if you have low water pressure then it’s often ineffective.

1. Make sure the surface of your toilet is dry.
2. Lift the toilet seat up and then cover your toilet bowl with three layers of cling film. Ensure that the whole area is covered and that you have pressed the cling film firmly down onto the porcelain, making a good seal.
3. When you flush the toilet, you should find that the cling film will balloon upwards as a result of the pressure of the flush.
4. Push down slowly on the raised clingfilm to reverse the suction and ease the blockage down into the main drain.

How to unblock a toilet using a plastic bottle

There is one level of unpleasantness worse than having a blocked toilet and no plunger, and that’s having a blocked toilet that is ‘full’ and no plunger.

Honestly, this can become a little messy, but it’s often very effective.

1. Put on those rubber gloves and some old clothes and make sure your newspaper is in place.
2. Bail some of the water out of the toilet. You can do this using a small (disposable!) container and pour it into the sink or a bucket.
3. When you’ve removed enough water for you to get your hand into the toilet bowl without causing water to slop over the side, take a large plastic bottle and cut the bottom off.
4. Either replace the lid or put your thumb over the top to create a vacuum. If your thumb isn’t big enough to cover the neck completely, use some cling film and an elastic band to create a seal that operates like the lid.
5. Push the open end of the bottle into the toilet bowl and plunge it up and down vigorously, ensuring that it remains completely under the water.

4. Coat hanger

To unblock your toilet with a coat hanger you will need a wire hanger that you will be able to bend into shape.

1. Unwind a wire coat hanger until it’s straight.
2. Bend one end back up to form a U shape and use this end to push into the toilet.
3. Push and pull at the obstruction until it begins to break up and flows away down the mains drainage.

While this is one of the easiest ways to unblock a toilet, it’s also one of the ways that often has only partial success.

It should be used in conjunction with the washing up liquid system or the plastic bottle system to ensure complete removal of the obstruction rather than just poking a hole in it, which leaves it to re-clog again.

How to prevent toilet blockages

The first step to preventing further toilet blockages is understanding what has caused the initial blockage. If this is something that has been happening regularly then steps need to be taken to address the root cause.

Why does my toilet keep blocking?

A toilet that is becoming regularly blocked can happen for a number of different reasons.

Some common causes of toilet blockage may include:

Flushing non-flushable items down the toilet

Common culprits of this are wipes and sanitary products. You should only flush human waste and toilet paper down your toilet!

Toilet paper and limescale buildup

If too much toilet paper has been used it doesn’t always dissolve properly, thicker ply toilet paper can also have issues being dissolved.

To prevent limescale buildup the toilet should be cleaned regularly.

Low-flowing toilet

Although a great option for saving money and water, this type of toilet is inherently more prone to blockages due to a lower amount of water being used to flush the toilet.

Damaged sewer lines

It’s straightforward to identify whether this is the cause of any toilet blockage as the same issue will be happening to more than one toilet or drain in the house.

Blocked toilet vent

If you have a blocked toilet vent, the toilet loses the pressure it needs to flush properly.

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Summary

• The most commons way to unblock a toilet is to use a plunger to get the blockage moving
• If you don't have a plunger, you can also use other methods such as washing up liquid, baking soda and vinegar to dissolve the blockage
• If the blockage is particularly bad, using an old coat hanger or a plumbing snake to physically break it up will help get things working again