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Your Common Plumbing Questions Answered

Like so many of modern life’s conveniences, we tend to take our plumbing entirely for granted… until it goes wrong.

If the toilet suddenly backs up, or a tap continues to leak, or a sink won’t drain, there are several relatively simple self-fixes you can try. In this easy-to-digest overview, we’ll look at those three common plumbing problems, give advice on how to deal with them, and refer you to other blog posts that deal with plumbing questions in greater detail.

How to Unblock A Toilet

Immediately stop flushing the toilet. Dumping more water into the bowl isn’t extremely likely to result in a miraculous clearance; rather, you’ll just make matters worse by flooding the floor with overflowing water. In fact, turn off the valve which serves the toilet, then wait for the trapped water to seep away.

Put on a pair of sturdy rubber gloves, reach in and try to remove any obvious blockages. If that doesn’t work, add a little dish soap to a half-bucket of  hot (not boiling) water, then pour the mixture into the toilet from a couple of feet above the top of the bowl. If the pressure and agitation caused by the falling water doesn’t work, the detergent may loosen the blockage.

Use a heavy-duty rubber plunger, or attempt to push out the obstruction with a plumbing snake (a flexible coil of wire on a spool). You can buy a manual version, or rent one that works on an electric drill.

This and other plumbing questions are more fully explored here

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