We’re all friends here, right? Okay, so today I’m going to share a tip with you that I’ve shared with a few of my real-life girlfriends lately and all of them have encouraged me to put it on my blog, even though at first I didn’t really want to because it’s kind of gross. But every person I told about this said, “You have to share that. I have that exact same problem with my kids. That’s a tip I could actually use!”
What am I talking about?
Poop.
More specifically, kids clogging toilets. Yes, we are going there today.
One of my children is very, um, gifted (?) in the fecal producing department.This yields especially large dividends, if you know what I mean, which results in a lot of clogged toilets around here. Once, before we discovered this trick, our guest bathroom was out of commission for over a month.
So, if you also have a child who is gifted in this department, how do you deal? I’ll tell you.
How to Unclog Your Toilet With Dish Soap
Allow me to set the scene…
The toilet is clogged. You’ve been trying to plunge it, poke at stuff with a wire coat hanger, etc. but nothing is working. The water level keeps rising and it’s threatening to overrun your bathroom floor with chocolate soup.
It’s going to be okay.
STEP 1: Head over to your kitchen sink and you grab the dish soap. We use Dawn anyway and I have heard that it really should be Dawn for this particular use because it has the most powerful agents to break down…stuff. This is not a sponsored post. I just really do use that brand.
STEP 2: Squirt a healthy amount of Dawn into the toilet bowl (a tablespoon or more), along with a cup of hot water, if it will fit. Then wait 30 minutes to an hour. Longer is better. Adding more hot water in a few minutes is also better.
STEP 3: Wait. Go watch an episode of Dora the Explorer with The Brick Layer and have a snack.
STEP 4: Now we are going in. Dora is over. It’s been 30 minutes to an hour. Ready? Grab a plunger. Yes, the same one that wasn’t working on that mess an hour ago.
Use the plunger. It should be working now.
STEP 5: Repeat if needed. If it did not work the first time, repeat the whole process one more time.
If it doesn’t work after that, say a prayer and call a plumber because you are beyond the power of my help.
But, I can attest that this trick has never failed us.
And thank God for that because I really cannot afford to be calling a professional to snake our pipes every other day.
Frequently Asked Question:
(No one has actually asked this question yet, but I have a feeling it might come up based on previous questions on posts like Is It Actually Green To Pee in The Shower: Scientific Answers from a Civil Engineer and Homemade Dishwasher Detergent.)
Is it really safe to use Dawn in the toilet? How will this affect my city’s water supply or water treatment process?
I asked a licensed Professional Civil Engineer, who happens to also be my husband, that question and this was his response:
“Dawn is designed to break up fats & greases so it actually aids the water treatment process. It’s beneficial to put warm/hot water in the bowl too, if there is enough volume to hold it, when you put the Dawn in. It will make the process work faster. Besides, all that [toilet] water goes the same place as when you wash dishes!”
Well…there you have it.
Good luck everybody!
Amazon affiliate links provided for your convenience.
Don’t forget to pin this tip so you have it handy when you really need it!
Can this process be used as “maintenance”?
Hi Kathy, I’m not exactly sure I understand this question, but I don’t think it would hurt anything to use this method periodically, even if the toilet wasn’t clogged at the time. My husband is a civil engineer and has answered questions here on the blog before about how eventually all of our bathroom drains are going to the same pipes (You can see his much more professional answers about that here if you’re interested: http://binkiesandbriefcases.com/pee-in-shower-questions/), so if a product like soap is safe to put in the sink or shower, I would think it should also be perfectly safe to put in the toilet.
Will this unclog a bathroom sink???
Hi Mary. I haven’t tried this on a sink, but I think it would depend on the clog. If the clog is caused by something like hair, then a degreaser like dish soap would not be able to break it up the same way it can a toilet clog.