How to plunge a toilet the right way (and what not to do)

The water is rising. That is the moment most people grab the plunger and start pumping, and it is also the moment the bowl overflows onto the floor. Plunging a toilet is simple, but the order matters, and the first step is not the plunger.

Stop the bowl from overflowing first

1. Do not flush again. Each flush adds a tankful to a bowl that cannot take it. Take your hand off the handle.
2. Lift the tank lid and push the flapper down. The flapper is the rubber flap at the bottom of the tank. Pressing it closed by hand stops water entering the bowl immediately, and it is faster than finding the valve.
3. Or shut the supply valve. It is the small oval or football-shaped handle on the wall or floor behind the toilet. Turn it clockwise. If it will not turn, or drips when you touch it, leave it alone and hold the flapper instead; a stuck angle stop is its own repair.
4. Wait a few minutes. A partial clog often lets the bowl drain slowly on its own. If the level drops, you have room to work without a mess.
5. Put towels down. Old ones. Plunging splashes.

Use the right plunger

• Flange plunger. A cup with a soft rubber sleeve that folds out from inside it. The sleeve fits into the outlet at the bottom of the bowl and makes the seal. This is the toilet plunger, and it is the one to buy.
• Cup plunger. The flat-bottomed classic. It is for sinks and tubs, where the drain is flat. On a toilet it cannot seal against the curved outlet and mostly moves water around.
• Accordion plunger. Hard plastic, works when it seals, but hard to seat, and the stiff edge can scratch the porcelain. Skip it.

Keep one of each. The one that has been in a toilet should never go in the kitchen sink.

Water level, seal, and motion

A plunger moves water, not air. You need enough water in the bowl to cover the cup completely. If the bowl is nearly empty, add water from a bucket. If it is nearly full, bail some out so the strokes do not slop over the rim.

1. Fold the flange out and angle the plunger into the bowl so the cup fills with water rather than trapping a pocket of air.
2. Seat the flange in the outlet so the cup covers the opening. Press down gently first to push out any air still inside.
3. Push and pull. The pull is the stroke most people skip, and it is the one that works. Pulling back tugs the clog from the far side of the trapway instead of packing it tighter. Keep the seal and use steady strokes, 15 to 20 at a time, firm but not violent.
4. Pull the plunger away sharply on the last stroke. If the water drops, flush once with the tank lid off and your hand ready on the flapper.
5. Repeat. Two or three rounds is normal. If nothing has moved after three, plunging is not the answer.

The dish soap trick, and what not to do

Squeeze a good amount of dish soap into the bowl, then pour in a bucket of hot tap water from about waist height. Wait 15 to 20 minutes. The soap lubricates, the hot water softens paper, and often the level drops on its own. Then plunge again. Hot from the tap is the limit. Never boiling water: it can crack the porcelain and soften the wax ring under the toilet.

• No chemical drain cleaners. They rarely reach a toilet clog in any strength, they generate heat that can crack the bowl, and they leave a bowl of caustic water for the next person to plunge. Any that gets past the toilet ends up in the drain line, where it eats old cast iron under the slab.
• No coat hangers or sink snakes. They scratch the porcelain and score the trapway glaze, and a rough trapway catches paper forever.
• No standing on the toilet or leaning your weight into the plunger. Bowls crack at the base. A cracked bowl is a replacement.

When a closet auger is next

A closet auger is a short steel cable inside a bent tube, with a rubber sleeve where it meets the porcelain. It reaches through the trapway and hooks or breaks up what the plunger could not move: a wad of wipes, a bar of soap, a child’s toy. Feed the cable in, crank the handle while pushing, and when you feel it catch, crank while pulling back. A decent one is worth owning. A drain snake meant for sinks is not a substitute; it has no guard and will scratch the bowl.

If the auger goes all the way through without meeting anything and the toilet still does not flush, the clog is past the toilet, in the branch line or the main.

When the toilet is telling you something bigger

A toilet that clogs every week with normal use is not a plunger problem. One of three things is going on:

• The toilet has a poor trapway. Early low-flow toilets from the 1990s are notorious for narrow, unglazed trapways that catch paper. Hard water scale builds in the rim jets and the trapway over the years and makes it worse. A modern toilet with a larger, glazed trapway flushes far better with the same amount of water, and replacing the toilet is often the fix.
• A partial blockage downstream. Something in the branch line or the main lets less and less through, so the toilet is the first fixture to show it. If a shower gurgles or fills when you flush, this is the case, and it needs a cable and a camera, not another plunger.
• The flush is weak. A low tank water level, a flapper that closes early, or scaled rim jets mean the bowl never gets the full push. Some of that is a simple adjustment; some of it is age.

No one should need a plunger weekly. Once a toilet is on that schedule, find out why before it decides for you.

If you have plunged, augered, and the toilet still clogs, or it clears and does it again next week, send us what you found. We can tell you whether it is the toilet or the line behind it.