Speaker 1: Today I'm going to show you how
to unclog a toilet.
The first method you don't even need any tools.
The second two methods can get a little ugly.
Hey if this is your first time here, hit the
subscribe button so you don't miss anything.
Speaker 1: Now a toilet that doesn't flush
well is either caused by an obstruction in
the bowl or a problem with the guts in the
toilet.
So what I usually do to start troubleshooting
is take off the lid of the bowl and flush
it and watch and see what happens.
So the best test to do here is to get some
toilet paper and throw it in there, and let's
flush it and see what happens.
Speaker 1: So that's not good.
It didn't go all the way down.
What I'm looking for is for the flapper to
lift all the way up and completely empty the
contents of the tank into the bowl.
Now the bowl has holes underneath the rim
here and so the water drains from the tank,
rushes throughout the bowl and down into the
toilet.
So obviously this isn't working.
As I watched it flush everything looked like
it functioned well in the tank, so I'm guessing
there's a problem with the bowl.
So let's start by troubleshooting here.
Speaker 1: The first method I use is simply
to get a bucket of water, fill it up.
You want to get two, two and a half gallons
of water and actually dump it in the bowl.
Now this works best when the water level in
the bowl is low or just medium.
If it's full or near overflowing don't even
go to this.
Go right to a plunger or even a snake.
But this is using hydrostatic pressure which
is simply the force of water pushing down
into the bowl.
Let's see how it works.
Speaker 1: So I've got a bucket of water here
and this should work exactly like a regular
toilet flush, with the exception of the water
isn't coming from the rim of the bowl, it's
actually coming from the bucket.
Now this water level is not low, it's more
medium.
I don't know that we're going to have great
success because of that.
If it was very low it works fairly well.
So let's try it.
You want to pour it all in at one time, and
that forced everything down.
So let's see now if that made any difference
at all.
So we'll get some more toilet paper.
Now the water level is very low.
I might have to put a lot of toilet paper
in.
Let's just see what happens.
Not good.
Speaker 1: So now we're going to go to the
second method and that is going to be the
plunger, my weapon of choice.
So realize that the capacity of these economical
tanks is only one point six gallons of water,
and I just threw two and a half gallons of
water down the bowl and it flushed very well.
You certainly don't want to do that every
time you need to flush the toilet, but just
be aware that you're playing with one point
six gallons rather than a big bucket of water.
Speaker 1: Okay the next method to try is
a plunger and you notice this plunger has
a very narrow opening and this is what you
want.
You want to be able to move a large volume
of water very focused, very quickly.
Don't get the plunger that it looks like a
cereal bowl connected to a stick.
You want something that can carry volume and
push the water down in a very narrow opening.
So let's try this.
You want to fill this with the water in the
bowl because water won't compress, but air
will.
So if I just tried to do that, you can see
the water coming up.
We want to fill this with as much water as
we can, and I just opened up the toilet there
to allow more water in and a lot of times
you'll get an object that will come back out.
You'd be surprised pens, glasses, people will
bend over and
it'll drop out of their pocket.
Speaker 1: So this is really terrible.
Now while the water level is getting pretty
high I'm going to try this again.
Refill with water.
You can see I'm putting a lot of weight in
this thing and still not a whole lot's happening.
So we'll let this thing refill.
That was a pretty good flush.
You can see everything went down.
I'm going to give it just one more for safety
measure.
Expelling the air first.
When it refills it will refill with water.
I'm going to give it a couple of real good
pushes and this will either push the obstruction
down or bring it back into the bowl.
Speaker 1: So when you're done with that you
want to have a plastic bag nearby because
now this is really dirty.
You want to dump that in the bag so you don't
drip anything in anybody's house.
Let's get some toilet paper, throw that in
there and see how this goes once it refills
again.
Excellent.
That was a great flush.
I'm hoping that we're fixed here.
Speaker 1: Okay that last flush was really
good, but just for the heck of it I'm going
to show you how to snake a toilet with a closet
auger or toilet snake.
It's like a normal plumbing snake that you
might see, except that its got a fixed handle
on it and its got a protective boot so you
don't scratch the porcelain of the toilet.
So this is what it looks like.
It's about six feet long and you want to hold
on to the protective boot here and the corkscrew
end is in there.
So you slip this down inside the toilet and
now anything that scratches you're not going
to see it because it's down underneath where
your eyes would see anyway.
Speaker 1: So once that's in there you can
push the snake through.
It's actually moving.
I've got about six and there's about three
feet of it in there and if there's anything
in there it's coming out.
So I would retract that, and that's just rust
from this thing.
And again you want to have a bag or something
to put this thing in because that of course
is nasty.
And let's flush it.
Speaker 1: Alright let's put some more toilet
paper in this thing, give it a flush and see
how we did.
I'd call that pretty successful.