Toilet Auger vs Snake: What’s the Difference and Which Tool to Use?

Having at least one drain cleaning tool is essential to every household. You never know when a toilet or a sink is going to act up, and where will you be when it finally does and you don’t have anything to fix it?

In this article, let’s discuss the two most useful draining tools today: toilet augers and snakes, and why you need at least one of them in your house.

When I was in college, sharing a room with three other young people who have no concept of housekeeping, you could only find an old plunger in our tool closet. Fortunately, we only had to use it a few times during our four-year stay at the university.

Fast forward a few years, I got married and bought a house for a three-member family. Obviously, I had to have more than a plunger in my tool arsenal – especially with a kid who loved to flush his toys down the toilet.

Toilet Fills Up Then Drains Slowly: Causes & Solutions

Considering the number of times we flush the toilet each day, and the kind of material that gets flushed down the drains, you can expect your toilet to experience some kind of problem at some point.

When I was a bachelor living on my own in a new-ish apartment complex, I had a few plumbing problems that were either caused by the previous tenants or my own carelessness (hint: flushing things that shouldn’t be disposed of in the toilet).

At some point in time, one of these problems was my toilet filling up then draining slowly. Of course, the first instinct was to go at it with a plunger. But being a young bachelor with little to no house repair experience, plunging the toilet didn’t always work.

Luckily, I’ve gone a long way from being a clueless bachelor poorly dealing with his own plumbing problems. In this article, I’m going to share with you the tips and tricks on how to fix a toilet that is not flushing properly, particularly a toilet that fills up then drains slowly.

Toilet Flushes Slowly and Incompletely: Causes and Solutions

It takes just two things to keep a toilet flushing properly: enough water in the toilet tank, and a clear drainpipe with no blockages at all.

If you happen to lack any or both of these requirements, then your toilet is bound to act up. For example, it can flush slowly and incompletely, causing great inconvenience to you and whoever uses the toilet.

This problem is the most common one I encounter in other people’s houses and in my own. Toilets that are flushing slowly and incompletely are not only annoying, but they can also cause overflow or cause further damage to the toilet. It certainly did cost me a few hundred dollars in plumbing bills when I wasn’t aware of DIY fixes yet.

Toilet Flushes Slow but Not Clogged: How to Remedy It

A toilet that flushes slow but is not clogged can be quite frustrating. Weak or slow water movement can fail to create an effective flush.

In a normally functioning toilet, the rapid water movement creates a suction inside the pipe, which serves as the actual flush that pulls down all waste material down the drain. If your toilet is not flushing completely, then waste material may be backed up in the bowl or you may be using more water than usual.

Are you having the same annoying problem with your toilet? In this article, we will talk about the possible home remedies if a toilet flushes slow but is not clogged.

How to Unclog a Toilet with an Electric Snake

Nothing is more frustrating than a clogged toilet, especially if it clogs up at just the worst of times.

At some point in your life, you will have experienced a clogged toilet. If you haven’t yet, that’s great!

But as an adult who should be responsible enough to unclog their own toilet, here’s a quick article on how to unclog a toilet with an electric snake.

Say goodbye to plungers, because we have a better unclogger — quite literally — in our hands.

How to Snake a Toilet with a Hanger

Is your toilet clogged and you don’t have any tools in the house to fix it? Not even an old toilet plunger, much less a toilet snake?

Before you panic and do something you might regret later on (like calling in a plumber and spending a lot of money), here’s a quick tutorial on how to snake a toilet with a hanger. Sounds like an obscure way to fix a clogged toilet, but hey, it works.

How did I come around to discovering this weird trick, you may ask?

Well, it all started way back in college when I shared a house with three other people. Of course, not everyone is familiar with the concept of throwing out their toiletries in the garbage can and not the toilet. Hence, a massively clogged throne.

Being a clump of broke college students, we couldn’t afford to hire a professional plumbing service to unclog our toilet. We didn’t have a plunger lying around either.

Lo and behold — with the help of some Internet searching– I came across a tutorial on how to use a hanger to unclog a toilet. Now I’m here, ready to share the same wisdom with you.

How to Unclog a Grease Clogged Drain

While this is very much a common problem, you’d be shocked at how huge of an issue this can be. A grease clogged drain is the sort of problem you end up having to deal with at some point in your life, without fail.

The fact is that it’s so nasty, hard to deal with and generally disgusting only makes it worse. The stench, the unhygienic terror of it, the sheer mess of it all is daunting.

The overflowing of water caused by grease is definitely not something anyone wants to deal with. Trust me, there have been a few experiences I’d rather forget, too.

One time, my kitchen sink basically produced a waterfall all on its own, with how backed up it had become. It turned into a mess of epic proportions, one where the neighbors had to get involved because it affected them too because they lived below me in the building.

It may even sound like you shouldn’t have to deal with these sorts of problems, right? You’re careful and meticulous, as well as clean and orderly…

But it doesn’t matter. There is almost no way to prevent these issues and they will happen.

Toilet Clogged with Toilet Paper: How to Remove Blockage

The bathroom is an oddly unpleasant place, all things considered. The potential for mishaps and all sorts of accidents, most of which are largely not even your own fault, is huge.

From mirrors being broken due to unlucky timing and movements, all the way to cracked porcelain, there’s no shortage of potential issues. The most unpleasant, however, always revolve around the toilet bowl itself.

Unpleasantness regarding the one place where you do your most urgent and necessary bodily functions can be very daunting. Especially when they relate to getting rid of bodily waste.

You’d be surprised and quite possibly shocked at how often a toilet can get clogged, by all manner of things. Even a hairclip can sometimes do damage and that’s not even the most absurd example out there.

However, we’re discussing one of the most common causes of a blockage today – toilet paper causing a clog and a gigantic mess.

How to Unclog a Toilet with Dish Soap

Have you ever gotten a clogged toilet at the worst possible time?

Like moments before a guest is coming over or after you really need to use it?

Needless to say, a clogged toilet is perhaps the worst plumbing problem that can happen to you. Not only is it gross and a huge mess, but it can also cost you a significant amount of money for repairs.

One trick that I learned when I moved into my first apartment was learning how to unclog a toilet using alternative measures. Sure, I could have used the traditional methods like using a plunger or just calling in a professional to fix my problem, but sometimes, neither of these solutions work.

How to Unclog a Toilet with Baking Soda

We often overlook everyday things in our lives that might surprise us. There’s a lot of uses that many items we take for granted have and we’re not even aware of it.

There’s a lot to be said about the usefulness of baking soda. Let me list just a couple of potential applications that you would probably have never even thought of:

-It can make your breath fresher and even clean your teeth. Like a homemade toothpaste, but with a lot more kick to it.
-It can be mixed into your bath or made into a paste with water, to both relieve the ache of bites and any skin problems. It’s very good for your skin in general.
-It can be used in house maintenance of all kinds. From scrubbing ovens, tubs, and faucets all the way to cleaning floors, if added to the water.
-You can even use it sometimes as a substitute for shampoo. In fact, if it comes to it, you can use it to relieve your baby’s diaper rash.
-It can even be used to soften and completely remove all sorts of odors.

With this in mind, let’s come to why you’re actually reading this. You want to know how you can use this product alone to help with your unpleasant situation.

Unfortunately, more often than not, we’ve all been there. A clogged toilet is something you really don’t want to discuss or deal with but when it rears its head you have to.

I’ve witnessed a clogged toilet in a restaurant. It was a horrifying sight to walk in on and the fact they hadn’t yet fixed it soured me on the restaurant, you can bet on it.

Now, this will give you both a good idea of what to do, why to do it and why it might be the best option for you. Let’s get right into it.