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.