How to Unclog a Toilet

Video Transcript

"We have a toilet that's not flushing, or not flushing very well. What we want to find out is, is the problem in the toilet drain, or is the problem in the toilet tank delivering the water to the bowl? So what we do, we have the patented Gilbert's hardware bucket test, where we take a five gallon bucket filled with about four gallons of water and we start pouring it into the toilet, and as we pour, we're going to pick up speed, and we're really going to let that toilet have it, and now we're going to see how that water goes down. That water went down pretty good, so that's showing us that the drain doesn't appear to be obstructed. So this toilet is going to need to get a deliming acid wash. Now, if we take, and that water didn't go down that well, and there was a clog in the toilet; especially if we have children in the house, we're going to whip out the toilet auger. We'll whip out the auger. This is called a closet auger, and it's a sewer snake with a bent handle. So, we can put it into the toilet; we can shove the snake down, maybe. Then we turn while we're pushing. So now we get the snake in and we turn and push at the same time. You see this snake is going down and around, and we proceeded to get the snake all the way through the toilet. Now if there's an army man, or a rag, or a towel in there when we pull this back out, we will pull out the obstruction, or we will push it through one way or the other. Anyway, this is how we clean a clogged toilet from children's toys and so forth."