I have a blocked toilet - the bowl drains very slowly, suggesting a 90 - 95% blockage.
Pumping up and down repeatedly with a large plunger has made a big improvement
- estimated blockage now down to 10%
How to clear it completely?
Have you been able to determine whether the blockage is within the pan or further away in the soil pipe?
If it's the former, you could try running hot water theough it for a period of time from a hose. Is there a shower with flexible hose within reach for example?
The remaining material is likely to be paper or perhaps vampire's teabags, and hot water may move them.
.andy
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Pump up and down with an even larger plunger?
More pumping and bucket full of water poured as fast as possible from
3' above the pan, a flush is pretty pathetic compared to that.
Another possible source of blockage is dental floss. If one piece ever gets caught up on something, it will continue to tangle up more dental floss, paper etc... and it never, never rots away. Unfortunately the blockage can occur way downstream of the bowl, where the plunger, hot water or chemicals will be ineffective.
One of those extendable rotary plungers might help. They're not intended to go round the U-bend, but they will with a little care. Also, you might be able to use it to reach the blockage via the top of the stink-pipe or the manhole cover near the bottom.
Or if that doesn't work, you'll have to remove the bowl (which is actually no big deal) and go fishing.
But whatever you find has caused the blockage, make it a house rule not to do that again.
Thanks to all who replied - I will try more pumping etc, as well as hot water - but any chemical remedies?
dynamite :)
If the blockage is within the pan and under water, then chemicals (the usual caustic or acid remedies) might help.
However, if it's in the soil pipe, partial and perhaps at the top of the pipe, then chemicals may well not reach it.
If the hot water approach doesn't work, I think that I would be inclined to remove the pan next and gain direct access to the pipe and pan.
.andy
To email, substitute .nospam with .gl
The blockage is either in the u bend. Shoving your hand down there with a short length of hose should eliminate that. or outside in the vertical soil pipe. Unlikely, but there should be a removable plate for rodding, or outside and below ground (most likely) where you should have a manhole cover. I'd start with the latter and work backwards. Removing the bowl is pretty drastic for such an everyday event. Chemicals are usually a waste of time. You need some kind of physical impact to shift obstructions.
Or very likely, lying in the length of slightly sloping pipe that connects the two. A hose or a rotary plunger pushed around the U-bend will come out along the top of that pipe, and may completely miss what's lying underneath.
However, you may be able to block the end of the hose and drill a hole in what will be the bottom side, to make some kind of jet that can reach that area.
(It's so much easier to think creatively about a blocked toilet when it's someone else's.)
Stuff a hose down - flexible ones will get round the U bend with some encouragement - then once it's a long way in turn it on and push.
In article , Paper2002AD writes
Nitrogen trichloride?
Tip caustic soda crystals fllowed by kettle of hot water, down it, wearing usual safety nanny googles and gloves, and cover with a plastic bin liner till it stops fizzing.
Then leave for an hour or two, then flush.
If you suspect heavy pipe scaling pour a half gallon of brick acid down it and wait a day till it stops fizzing.
They will reach wherever the blocked, but slowly filtering, water that dissolves them will.
Strong alkali and strong acid applied serially will usually dissolve anything organic, leaving the pipes and bowls nice and clean.
Neither of which will have any effect on the typical household blockage which, as in this case, is only partial. The chemicals will just flow past it a little slower than normal. Caustic unblockers are designed for people who pour things like cooking oil down the loo. A lot of cellulose based products actually swell in alkali. And scale sufficient to block a soil pipe? Jesus, that *would* be hard water.
I've had two blockages in two different loos in the last 3 months, both with slow dispersal. Both were cleared with chemicals from the local hardware store - the first was caustic soda, and the second was sulphuric acid. Both had very clear instructions (wear goggles, etc) on the container. They cost about 6 euro each. The sulphuric acid seemed to work more quickly.
Incidentally, what is "brick acid"?
Either phosphoric acid or "muriatic" (hydrochloric) acid.
Where in the UK can punters like ourselves buy such delicacies, as industrial-grade chemicals in their own name (ie not as constituents of some other product like toilet cleaner); at sufficient concentration to be capable of doing something; in sensible quantities (eg a litre); and at sensible prices?
Well, I had a case once...
basically teh loo outfall was about 1/2 diameter due to years of scale, and into that got wedged a lot of loo paper and fecal matter.
Now teh caustoc got rid of te fecal matter, and the acid got rid of the scale - albeit taking several applications over several weeks. And sanit(ar)y was restored.
My experience is that usually a blockage is not just one thing, but many, and all need to be cleared.
With a partially blocked toilet, the chemicas flow slowly and collect where the block is.
Once its mostly cleared it washes away unless there is something really solid there. Might be a tree root, might be scale, might be a disposable razor jammed up with a plastic beaker.
Acid and alkali will bugger up almost anything organic - if one doesn't the other will.
The only stuff that gets left is generally physical plastic objects, and sometimes metal ones, but acid often erodes those as well - enough to free them.
Pushing a hose backwards up the pipe towards the blockage from downstream is also very very effective.
I've kept various drains clean using all these methods for years in varous crappo rented properties.
*shrug* If it works, use it. >30% hydrochloric acid.
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