How to Unclog a Toilet with a Toilet Auger
Video Transcript:
Austin Taylor here with Dynamic Drains Plumbing and Drain Experts where the best customer is the educated one. Today, I wanted to talk about toilet clogs and a very good way to deal with them with a toilet auger, specifically a six foot telescopic toilet auger. This is much better than a traditional plunger because they can remove a foreign object or break up paper much more effectively and a lot of times a plunger is only going to push the water past or the paper but there still could be something left in there. And this is what we have on the bottom of it, this bulb here, is very good at being able to retrieve and remove foreign objects. So, if your toilet becomes clogged and you know it’s just the toilet meaning that there’s no gurgling going on, your showers don’t have water backing up into them or your tub, then you know it’s specific to the toilet. The first thing you want to do is obviously not flush the toilet but put some gloves on, lay a towel down, get your toilet auger out. You’re gonna pull it in all the way to this guide right here and this guide, the reason it has the rubber on the bottom is to protect from the trap being, or the glaze, rather, on the toilet being scratched. Toilets are very susceptible to scratches from bare metals. So first what you’re going to want to do is pull this out all the way and if the water is discolored this can take a little time to determine where exactly the hole is for the trap-way but you’re going to want to fish it in there like so, get your hands a little wet and it allows it to rotate where you’re gripping on here. So like I said this is telescopic so this is a total of six feet. The first three-feet I’m going to auger down like so allowing the… you don’t want to apply much pressure you want to twist it and let the auger go through there. Now, if you start to get bound up on something, you’re gonna probably have to crank a little bit harder and then sometimes yank it back a little bit. If in the process of you doing this you notice the water goes down there’s really no need to go any further at that point if you notice it goes down. Simply, pull back… all the way, see if there’s something on there, shake out the water and then let it sit on the towel. But let’s say that didn’t get it. This is where the telescopic part comes in. You have this little button right here, you push this button, extend this out and push an additional three feet in, and hopefully that will get it. And now if it doesn’t then that might be the time to either try it again or it may be time to call the plumber to where they can pull the toilet and do a little bit more invasive work with more mechanical means. But hopefully this will get it and hopefully this will save you some time and money from having to deal with any unnecessary service calls. Anyhow, hope that helps, Austin Taylor with Dynamic Drains Plumbing and Drain Experts, have a good day.