What to Do if You Flush Too Much Toilet Paper Down The Toilet Bowl
The toilet is an essential part of our house and we visited the washroom everyday before and after work. Sometimes, we might be doing our business too long and might flush too much toilet paper down the toilet bowl. Before we find out the actual root cause of the chocked toilet bowl, we need to do some checks first. Determine where the sewer line is leaking. It’s usually the spot that is oozing to the surface.
2) Insert an air hose inside the line past the point of the break and apply air pressure to empty the line of remaining water.
3) Find a water line hose one size smaller than the sewer water line. Insert it into the larger pipe and push it in, well past where the break is thought to be.
4) Keep pushing it into the pipe until the far end is submerged in water. You can tell by blowing into the smaller pipe and hearing bubbling.
5) In the space between the two pipes, inject an expanding urethane foam crack filler. The harder, less expanding type works best.
6) Hopefully, the urethane ran down to the water level, began to foam back up, sealed the crack, and you will see it oozing back out the top.
7) Clean up the excess foam, and wait for it to harden.
8) Connect the inner, smaller water line to the system and apply water pressure again.
Tips:
This method will not work unless the sewer line slopes downwards and away from you. You need the far end of the smaller, inner pipe to be submerged in water to prevent the foam from sealing the far end shut.
Vertical water lines work the best. Horizontal lines do not.
Attaching a long, narrow tube to the urethane foam applicator helps to inject the foam more easily into the gap between the inner and outer pipes.
Since many families are practicing social distancing right now, our bathrooms at home are getting lots and lots of use. While finding rolls of toilet paper when you’re out shopping has been a bit of a challenge, the amount of toilet paper people use has definitely not decreased.
In fact, some of you may be using just a little bit too much toilet paper when you’re sitting on that porcelain throne and that can sometimes cause a problem.
Obviously, toilet paper is made from, you guessed it – paper, but what we are really talking about here is that it is made from the wood from trees and occasionally hemp plants. In most cases, it is made from “virgin” paper, which is created by using a combination of hardwood and softwood. The wood is mixed with water, chemicals to remove the fiber, and a bleach like chlorine dioxide. But we digress…
The point is that it’s made from a soft type of paper that is made in such a way that it will easily break apart and dissolve once it is in water.
Or rather, that is what it is meant to do. When too much of it ends up in a small space all at the same time, however, it can’t break down the way it should and it forms a gummy clog. This is bad enough, but then when more toilet paper, waste and other items meet up with the gummy clog, it just becomes worse and worse until it finally causes a backup and your toilet will no longer flush.
How to Stop Clogs from Happening
The easiest answer is to simply tell you to use less toilet paper, or if you do need to use more than usual do what you need to do, then flush before you use more. If you’ve been doing that though and still having problems, take a look at the type of toilet paper you’ve been using.
You may prefer the ultra-plush toilet paper that is super soft and strong, but when you get a toilet paper that is too thick, it sometimes doesn’t dissolve very well and even smaller amounts of a thick toilet paper can get stuck in the pipes and cause a clog.