Back again with some more do it yourself home repairs, as this can save you a bundle of money rather than calling out a plumber because you do not know how to fix a leaking faucet. I am going to try to explain this as best as I can so that everyone can understand it and make the plumbing repair by themselves. But as with just about all of the do it yourself home repairs I explain on this site, you should have at least some type of handyman skill in you.

If you are someone that just cannot fix stuff around the house, then I do not recommend you trying to do this plumbing repair by yourself. If you are lacking common sense and are not handyman coordinated, you could possibly flood your home by not paying attention to detail. With that being said let us get on you teaching you how to fix a leaky tub faucet.

This is what we are going to be dealing with for the sake of this tutorial. If you have a leaking shower faucet, meaning water keeps dripping out of the faucet after both of the valves are shut, then following this tutorial will fix that problem also. If you can do this, you can repair any type of leaky faucet, whether it be one that is in the kitchen, bathroom, bathtub or shower.

Some of the stems will be different but it is all the same principle. That is the tub stem, or faucet stem has a O-ring that is attached by a screw, and when that O-ring is pressed against the seat, the water will be blocked. If you have a brand new tub stem and your O-ring is brand new and you still have a leaky faucet, then you need to check your seat for smoothness, as if it has any nicks on it at all that will cause the faucet to leak.

As you can see, back to the beginning, we are dealing with a hot and cold stem, and the shower diverter in the middle. The diverter controls the amount of water that is coming out of the tub spout or the shower head faucet, the same principle follows to fix a diverter if you are still getting water coming from both the tub faucet and the shower head at the same time, with the diverted fully closed or open, the only difference is that the diverter uses one extra O-ring in most cases. I hope that makes sense.

Okay the first thing that we will need to do is pop the index button off of the shower handle, tub handle, whatever the hell it is you want to call it. Then we are going to have to remove the screw that is holding the handle onto the escutcheon sleeve.

Next step after this is to get the escutcheon sleeve and the back plate off of the wall. There are some styles that screw into the wall others are held to the wall by caulking or grout, either way you will have to get those free from the wall one way or another to get not only to the water shut off but to get the bad tub stem.

After this you have to find the water shut off for that particular handle, there may or may not be one right there, it all depends on what type of set up you have. Below you can see me securing the water to the handle. Other situations may require you to secure the hot water heater if you are replacing a tub stem on the hot side or even the water main to the house if you do not know of any other shut offs.

Either way, unless you have changed out hundreds of tub stems and have it down to a science, then you must have the water shut off as you can flood your home if you do not, and the water is going to be pouring out with some decent pressure when there is nothing there to regulate it.

Once you have the water secured you are going to have to loosen the tub stem out. This can be easily done if you have a tub stem removal tool, they come in a couple of different sizes as so do tub stems. It is not absolutely necessary to use the tub stem removal tool to accomplish this but it sure as hell helps a lot.

leaky tub faucet

Now that you got the old stem out I want you to inspect the seat that was behind it. You can do this by rubbing your finger across it feeling for any nicks in it, or you can use a flash light to check it out in detail. If the seat is fine it is time to get your new tub stem ready for installation.

Leaky Tub Faucet

Now some plumbers will just tighten down on the O-Ring and tighten the packing nut a little bit, but this is what I do to ensure that I do not get any call backs, and in many peoples cases, not have to fix a leaky faucet again. I take the O-ring off the top and I put some caulking on the top, then I put the O-Ring back and tighten down until it is snug.

If you tighten down on the O-Ring too much you are going to force the O-Ring to curve up, which over a short period of time will wear down as it is tightened against the seat. You want the O-Ring to be snug, the caulking will assist in keeping the O-Ring snug once it dries and ensuring that it does not come loose after multiple turns of the shower/tub handle.

Next you want to tighten down on the packing nut on the tub stem. If you are repairing a leaking kitchen or bathroom faucet, those stems usually do not have a packing nut so you will not have to worry about this. Just tighten down on the other end of the packing nut snug with a pair of pliers. As you can see if you have a stem removal tool there are two sides, the other side if for the packing nut.

Now that you got the tub stem ready just insert it into the hole where you took the old one out. Do not tighten down with a He-Man torque, as most tub stem threads are made from brass and if you crank down on it too much you can break it off completely. Once you have the stem in there turn the water on and check for leaks everywhere. If there are no leaks then you have just fixed a leaking faucet.

I will eventually be uploading a video on how to fix a leaky faucet, but that will have to wait until I get enough money to get a video camera. Please if you have any questions ask them here and provide as much detail as you can, if you have a picture to reference that would be better. If you make no attempt to ask a detailed question about stopping faucet leaks, then I will make no attempt trying to help you.

So you have stumbled upon this page because you want to know how to unclog a toilet, and if you found this page by a search engine you more than likely need an answer right this second. Well in many instances I can give you the answer this minute on how to unclog a toilet but you are going to need a toilet plunger, a good plunger, not some rinky dink plunger that will fold up and lose suction after a couple of plunges at the toilet.

So just that we can clarify what kind of plunger it is that you want to be using, I have provided an image of what you will be wanting to use to unclog a toilet.

If you are a cheap ass and invested a couple of dollars into a toilet plunger, it is more than likely not going to get the job done unless you are really good at plunging toilets. Here is an image of a shitty plunger, I call it that because after you are done plunging a shitty toilet all that is left on the plunger and in the toilet is shit because they do not work well, unless you know what you are doing of course, but if you did you would not be reading this in the first place.

Now I used to have a video camera until it was recently stolen, so I will have to borrow a video from our good friend youtube.com that can show you how to plunge a toilet. Now I am a professional when it comes to this stuff, I have been unclogging toilets every single day for over 3 years, I literally deal with shit everyday at work, it is what I do.

As I had said before I do a shit load of calls about clogged toilets. And I must tell you that I am successful in unclogging them 90% of the time with a plunger, same goes for clogged sinks and clogged bath tubs. This is all assuming that you have a proper sewage drain system where you live. Not everywhere does, even if you are in the United States. Some places dispose of shit and piss into septic tanks, and some city’s are not great about emptying them before they are full, if this is the case, and your septic tank is full, you need to call the city or the plumber or someone with a machine to empty it. But as I said most popular cities in the United States have a good sewage system so the problem of unclogging your toilet will lie in your hands or the plumbers if you must call out one.

Unclogging a Toilet With Dishwasher Soap

Sometimes a couple of spoons of dishwasher soap will be able to help unclog the toilet. What you will want to do is put about 3-4 teaspoons of dishwasher soap into the toilet, then walk away and wait about 5 minutes or so. By that time the soap will have hopefully lubricated the blockage a little bit, now continue to plunge the toilet multiple times. This doesn’t always work, but it is a nice little home recipe to help unclog toilets.

Unclogging a Toilet With a Plumbers Snake/Auger

Where I work and where I am from we call it a snake, others may call it a toilet auger, or a closet auger, which I think is what most plumbers call it, whatever. Anyways we around the apartment complex call it a snake. It is made of steel and coils tightly at 6 feet, with the end designed to remove obstruction from inside of the toilet. The hand ones are commonly made in 3 foot and 6 foot, you should only need 3 feet to clear the pipes in your toilet. Buying a toilet auger is a great investment, as they do a much better job of unclogging toilets then plungers do.

As before I wish I had enough money to replace my lost video camera, but until then I must borrow some more footage from youtube that I approve of and recommend that you watch if you want to know how to unclog a toilet with a plumbers snake……or you can call it an auger.

After the auger/plumbers snake reaches the end of the toilet, the piping gets a little bit bigger and it is much harder to clog, but also much harder to unclog.

If the clog is in the toilet itself a plumbers snake or a plunger should be able to do the trick, by pushing the obstruction, or destroying it, into the main line. Some augers are designed to where they will hook the obstruction that is clogging your toilet, so you will be able to retrieve that which was clogging the toilet in the first place.

Clogs Beyond The Toilet…

This usually requires heavy duty tools such as Rooters, or pneumatic augers that are able to go 25′ down the drain to 100′. These machines are expensive, and unless you are professional plumber, handyman, maintenance technician you really have no need for one unless you have the money to spend on one, or happen to know how to use it and have a lot of friends that clog the main line. The main line to me is anything that is after the toilet, anything that is after the initial drain bend.

When using a Rooter to unclog a toilet you will need to pull the toilet out from the floor, though there are also situations that you will have to get on the roof to run the auger. Check the bottom of the toilet to see if anything is blocking the hole in the toilet first. If there is standing water in the drain pipe directly under the toilet you have a main clog. There are many cases that I have ran into also that roots are blocking the passage in the pipe, sometimes these can be pulled out by hand…(wear a glove)…

Other times the roots break through the main piping further down the drain and will require a Rooter to break them free…This is where the plumbers make bank. If this is the case that you have a main clog you should just call a plumber, or see if Home Depot or Lowes or some other home improvement store will rent you a 25′ plus auger. Not sure if they will as I have not looked into it. Even if you can manage to get your hands on one you need to know how to use it to unlcog your drain, lack of knowledge can lead to bending and permanently kinking the steel coils deeming the auger almost useless…so if the auger starts circling wide instead of going forward, put the machine in nuetral or reverse it and straighten out the cable, you may have to push forward and switch back to neutral several times to get it going forward. If you force it you could damage the cable for good, which cost a couple hundred dollars to replace depending on how long it is.

Common Reasons Why Toilets Get Clogged

Flushing down anything but pee, poop or toilet paper, that is all that you should be putting down a toilet. Here is a small list of things that I commonly pull out of toilets with a plumbers snake.

- Tampons (sewer rats)

- Q-Tips

-Napkins

- Tissue Paper

- Paper Towels

- Condoms

- Cigarette Butts (Yes enough cigarette butts can lead to a toilet clogging up)

- Wet Wipes (Baby Wipes)

- Children Toys

Do not put any of that stuff down a toilet and you should be fine, you should not have to worry about unclogging a toilet if you do not put that crap down the toilet. Some may say that too much toilet paper can clog a toilet, well it can temporarily. But eventually it will dissolve in the water and flush through. This is where the dish washing soap method may help as dish wash soap may help to break down toilet tissue, I have not tried this though myself personally.

I hope that you have found this information on how to unclog a toilet useful, and I am a semi professional plumber as I deal with toilet problems day in and out at my job as a maintenance technician. If you disagree with any of my views or methods of unclogging a toilet, then please leave a comment, if you are right I will acknowledge it. This blog is about helping…I help people every day by fixing stuff such as plumbing problems and much more for an hourly wage. I am not a contractor nor a professional plumber, if I said it in a post, I have done it and it has worked. Good luck and by now I hope you have learned how to unclog a toilet.

The thing about garbage disposal troubleshooting is, that there are not many things to troubleshoot. It is not like an air conditioning system where many things can go wrong, the amount of problems that could go wrong with a garbage disposal can be counted on one hand. First off if your garbage disposal is leaking, you either have a bad seal that is connected to the drain line, or you have a bad seal at the sink. If this happens though you will notice it immediately, and commonly happens when you are installing a new garbage disposal. I will not be going over how to install a garbage disposal today but more of just a couple of garbage disposal troubleshooting tips that should get you on your way.

Garbage Disposal is Making a Humming Noise

This means that the garbage disposal is jammed. It does not take much to jam a garbage disposal. Think about it, the average garbage disposal only has 1/3 horsepower, some of the bigger ones can have up to 1 horsepower. The most common thing that I find inside of jammed garbage disposals are coins and thick bones. You can put skinny bones down in a garbage disposal, but do not be an idiot and put chicken bones down there, that will only get it jammed up. Also try and keep the silverware out of there also.

So on with the garbage disposal repair, getting it unjammed. Under most models there is an insert where you can put an alan wrench, usually 1/4 inch, and this insert is located on the bottom of the garbage disposal. Simply put the Alan wrench in the insert and move it back and forth until whatever is stuck in there breaks free. There are times though when you will have to dig out whatever is stuck in there manually. If you find yourself in this situation SECURE THE CIRCUIT TO THE GARBAGE DISPOSAL!!!  Do not stick your hand in a garbage disposal if the power is on – sure the power is cut at the switch but do you really want to risk it? Do not let the 1/3 horsepower fool you, that is enough power to push the blades enough to fuck your hand up!

If you do not have an Alan wrench handy, there is another method that may work. I say “may” because I have never tried it – but have read it before is to use a broom stick. Just stick the end of the broom to where it is against one of the blades and use force to loosen the obstruction. A hammer and some kind of chisel may work also – but as for me, I use an Alan key to unjam garbage disposals.

Garbage Disposal Makes No Noise When Turned On

Before you check the power – you may want to check the reset button, which is located right next to the Alan wrench insert. It is usually a square red button, and if it is popped out, just simply push it back in. The cause of this to happen is overloading the motor, which is caused by putting shit in there that should not be in there in the first place. Once you reset the garbage disposal, see the above to get the obstruction loose.

If you do not have any power – you may want to check your connections. You must understand that garbage disposals shake – alot – and if you have a wire nut that is not completely tight – it will eventually shake loose. Then not only will you have loose wire(s) hanging around, you will also have a non functioning garbage disposal.

Garbage Disposal Repair Tip

If you can hear a bunch of clatter when you turn the disposal on, but do not feel like digging it out with your hand – here is a little trick that will work 90% of the time. Get a sink stopper and fill the sink up with hot water. Take the stopper out and turn the garbage disposal on – the pressure from the hot water will usually push whatever was banging around in there through.

Keeping the Blades Sharp

I am sure that there are many ways that you can keep garbage disposal blades sharp – but me – personally, I just use ice cubes, and a couple of squirts of WD-40, usually does the trick.

When it comes to garbage disposal troubleshooting, I have fixed hundreds by using the advice above. The only thing that I left out is the replacement part, which I will cover another day. If the motor is shot – just replace the whole damn thing, it will be quicker, easier, and more than likely a lot cheaper. If you have any questions on garbage disposal repair or troubleshooting, just shoot me a comment and I will get to it when I can.