A toilet is more than a luxury in today’s world; it’s a fundamental requirement for every well functioning household. Fixing a clogged drain requires prompt investigation into its cause. People often blame children or overzealous adults for clogged toilets because they flushed too much toilet paper down the drain.
There are a few common causes of clogged toilet drains, but in most cases, the problem originates in the toilet trap, a branch drain line, the vent pipe, or the main sewer line. Plunging the bowl of the toilet is the typical solution to a blocked toilet, but if the problem persists despite using only a modest amount of paper and waste, it may be indicative of a more serious issue.
Everything But Tissues, Wet Wipes, and Toilet Paper
Some people have the mistaken belief that they can dispose of any item in the toilet by just flushing it. For instance, flushable wipes and other types of wipes pose a serious challenge for municipal sewage treatment plants and domestic plumbing systems. Paper towels are another item that looks like it should be able to go down the toilet, but they don’t break easily even when wet. The high physical resistance they present makes them challenging to disintegrate and flush down the toilet.
It’s not just human waste that people try to flush down the toilet; it’s also things like disposable clothes, sanitary pads, napkins, ear swabs, and even hair. Flushing them down the toilet or farther down the line might cause clogs and other problems with the plumbing system because they are not designed to function with the toilet.
Putting It Back Together
Plunging the clog with a toilet plunger or using a toilet auger to extract or break up the blockage and send it on its way to the main sewer system are common methods for clearing clogs caused by foreign debris (snake). However, unless everyone in your household adopts new, effective routines, the drain will certainly become clogged again.
Encourage everyone in the household to follow your lead and flush only flushable items. Put trash cans in every rest room so that people can dispose of garbage properly.
Incomplete clogging of the bathroom drain
The water from the bowl collects in a curved channel inside the porcelain base of the toilet, which is there to trap any standing water and block any sewer gases from entering the residence. This is the component that causes the bowl to retain a trace amount of water between flushes. This S- or P-shaped piece of porcelain links the bowl to the plumbing in your home. The outlines of the trap are usually visible while glancing at the side of the toilet base, making it easy to detect if it has a built-in trap.
The majority of clogged toilets are brought on by debris stuck in this arced part of the porcelain base. The trap part of the toilet bowl is where the clog normally forms when an excessive amount of waste is flushed down. Sometimes a toilet will still flush even if the trap is partially clogged, but the water will take longer to drain. However, as any homeowner would find out if the toilet bowl overflows fully, spilling wastewater over the bathroom floor, partial clogs frequently progress to complete clogs.
Putting It Back Together
Use of a toilet plunger is often necessary to break up a blockage in the toilet trap and allow water to flow freely via the branch drain and into the main drain. If this doesn’t work, you can try using a toilet auger to pull out the clog or break it up so it can be flushed away. If that doesn’t do the trick, you might need to call a plumber.
Plumbing Vents Blocked
Surprisingly few people know that a home’s plumbing system also includes gas lines, which carry hot water to the various appliances, and drain pipes, which carry wastewater outside. Ventilation pipes are vital to the plumbing system because they maintain a consistent pressure throughout the system and stop water from being sucked out of the drain traps and into the house, where it might cause a health hazard from the sewer gas. As an extension of the drain pipes, the vent pipes travel upward through the roof to maintain a constant pressure in the drainage system. These pipes also let in fresh air from outside, which creates suction and pressure inside the line and boosts the efficiency of the toilet’s flush.
Putting It Back Together
If you suspect a problem with the vent pipe, have someone on the roof flush the toilet while you observe the smoke coming from the vent above the bathroom. The vent is blocked and will need to be removed with a plumber’s snake if there is no suction coming from it. When leaves or other debris find their way into a roof vent, it’s usually not difficult to remove them. It’s also possible that the vent is obstructed at the outlet and needs to be cleaned manually.
