Last night our downstairs toilet clogged up, and of course, that’s something to write about. Just kidding -normally it wouldn’t be.
My husband had worked crazy hours this week and had gone to bed early. Don’t I hate it when you I am in charge and don’t’ want to be? Armed with our plunger, I entered the guest toilet and pushed and pulled, back and forth -got an excellent workout by doing so – but nothing happened.
The water level went down, but came right back up, when I flushed out the water of the toilet tank. It frustrated me. After 15 minutes I gave up. We would need a plumber, that was easy to see.
I have no idea why, but I went online, hoping I could find a solution to my dilemma. I found two YouTube videos and watched both with great interest. One was apparently the Korean way to unclog a toilet and while watching it, gave me the urge to hide under my desk, it also left me in absolute disbelief. Stunning, whats out there.
The other movie was an interesting demonstration. The women’s voice forced me to refill my wine glass, but I watched to the end and decided to give a try.
In the short film, they used paper towels and BBQ sauce to replicate the situation.
I poured a generous amount of dish detergent into the toilet, poured hot water on top of it, so the water was again up to the edge.
As told, I waited for 20 minutes, poured more hot water into it -waited – finally flushed and voila….nothing happened. I don’t give up easily and decided to give it one more try.
Surprisingly enough, this time it solved the problem.
The hot water dissolves any kind of paper easily and the dish detergent lubricates the pipes. It seems to be an old plumbers trick and so I thought for once, I share something useful on my blog.
I will have to file this one away for future reference. Glad you were able to get it fixed!
When I was young boiling hot water was always the thing we used. The dishwashing soap makes sense. I did not watch the video.
They have a card…..great, no I am officially in trouble.
Well done. I’ll try to remember that 🙂
Good to know…though….well….I hope I don’t need it either! I would never have thought to check YouTube. I guess it’s true that you can learn ANYTHING there!
Very interesting!
I wonder if I can use this with a septic system? There’s so much I *can’t* do with a septic system… :-/
I assume you do the dishes in the kitchen and you use dish detergent? 🙂
True enough, but it’s a matter of quantity… ^_^ I mean eventually the dish soap will end up in the tank eventually, but so much at once? It’ll probably be okay…
I used an eyeballed cup and I expected bubbles in our bathroom, but that didn’t happen 🙂
Good to know (your remedy). Mine is bleach. As soon as the level dips low enough and before the tank has time to refill, I’ll pour a hefty amount of bleach into the breech. Leave it a half hour or so, and usually it works. UNLESS. I had an unsolvable clog last Spring. Nothing I did helped. I called the plumber (wanted to buy some higher rise toilets anyway). He came, cleared the problem, installed the new toilets. And he told me the brand of toilet paper I was fond of was a very hard to digest type. It’s sturdy and it doesn’t dissolve as it should. AND (the most annoying part) when the contractor installed the original toilet, I guess something didn’t quite connect up right, so the contractor bent the outflow pipe pretty severely. Now ain’t nothing huge trying to get down the waterworks and out to where ever it goes or anything , but the opening was so narrow it’s a miracle pee passed the portal (figuratively). That toilet paper + the compromised opening equaled a clog friendly situation. Good on ya for solving your dilemma alone…
I am glad your problem got fixed.
I read your last sentence incorrectly. I read…’something useful on my log.’ Bahahahaha.
When I was a kid on our farm in Australia in the 1970s, my father and grandfather built our outhouse. Apparently, we had a resident frog in the toilet bowl. I don’t remember it, but I remember the story. We would flush the thing away and an hour or so later it would be back, sat in the bottom of the bowl happy as Larry.
Larry the stalker, I suppose. 🙂
better than a snake at least!
You are one seriously resourceful woman!! It would never have occurred to me to even try to fix the problem … I would have deferred until Mr Fixit was awake again 😉
The things we learn!
Oh, you should have listened to me brag today in the morning. I was mighty proud of myself.
… and so you should be! You rock the handy-person category 🙂
I love that Korean method. I could foresee a major catastrophe though!
I think that’s why I wanted to hide under the desk. 🙂
amazing what one can find on youtube! I always say there is nothing like Google!!! Glad it worked 😀
I learned it is an old plumbers trick. It’s magic! 🙂
I hope never to need it! 😀 :-p
I find it useful for unclogging sinks, so this makes sense too. Our house is still without running water since Thursday, so our toilets do not bear discussion nor videos right now–