Commercial Toilet Clogs Causes and Prevention
Everyday Items that Cause Commercial Toilet Clogs
A highly unusual item getting pulled out of a clogged commercial toilet is relatively rare. This is because, for the most part, it’s primarily everyday items that are to be found in and around a home or business, and that, of course, includes a large wad of toilet paper that turns out to be the culprit.
Then more often than not, in a commercial setting, it’s the women’s restrooms that tend to generate the most service calls, and there’s a good reason for this. That reason is that tampons are one of the most common items pulled out when a clogged toilet is snaked.
Professional Pittsburgh plumbers like Kwiatowski Plumbing use a large stainless steel mechanical cable called a snake to reach down into a sewer line to remove stubborn obstructions.
What can you do to prevent toilet clogs?
In a business setting, you pretty much are at the mercy of your clients and customers when it comes to clogs in commercial toilets. Even so, there are a few simple things that you can do to lessen your vulnerability.
The first on this short list is to install wall-mounted toilet paper and paper towel dispensers that deliver measured amounts when they are used. This, versus loose rolls, allows the user to pull off what they use in an unmeasured fashion.
It’s large wads of paper, particularly paper towels, that are often responsible for toilet clogs. Also, you can install a trash can and check it periodically to make sure it doesn’t become filled because once it is, people will tend to throw items like paper towels into the toilet.
Is your toilet continuously clogging?
Your commercial toilet becomes clogged; it’s cleared with a plunger, only to then promptly become clogged yet again. If this sounds like a familiar scenario, then what you need to know is that there is most likely something stuck down inside the toilet that needs to be removed.
It could be a toothbrush, a pen, or a pencil, or quite often a child’s plastic toy. Toilets are designed with a loop that the water navigates after the toilet is flushed. The water doesn’t course its way directly down from the toilet bowl.
Instead, it takes a curved trajectory such that after the flushing is over, the bowl will still contain that small pool of water. Once something becomes jammed in this loop, it will form an obstruction that requires the toilet to be removed to access it from the bottom.
Do drain cleaners in a bottle really work?
The simple answer to this question is that, for the most part, drain cleaners don’t work on toilets. They just aren’t formulated to dissolve things like plastic and paper. Instead, they are meant to dissolve grease in drains in places like a kitchen sink.
Then most of the common brands that you can find on the shelf at your local hardware store barely even work for grease. This is because they’ve been reformulated in recent years to be safer to use.
The very best of them, though, are granular, and these are essentially pure sodium hydroxide, and that stuff is highly caustic. That means it will burn your skin in a similar way that a strong acid will. So if a drain cleaner in a bottle will work on a toilet, that means the clog is so minor that an ordinary plunger will for sure work even better.
Try this if you don’t have a toilet plunger
Perhaps you have already discovered that when a commercial toilet becomes stopped up and is then flushed, that there is often enough water in the tank to fill the bowl all the way to the top and then spill over the edge like a horrible waterfall onto your floor.
It may, in time, force the obstruction down from the pressure of the water in the bowl, but you will still be left with a mess on the floor. So the thinking person’s solution is to reach behind the toilet and shut off the water valve, so nobody flushes it until it is cleared.
Then locate a bucket and use that with a measured amount of water so you can control the volume in an attempt to flush the clog out without the risk of overflow.
What about those new high-tech toilet plungers?
We all know what a toilet plunger looks like because they’ve been around for untold decades. They really do come in handy for minor clogs, but, in some instances, they simply aren’t enough to do the trick. So behold new high-tech plungers with new configurations to fit better over the toilet drain and hold more air to shove down and push out the obstruction.
But if that doesn’t do the trick and a higher level of technology is required, there are now high-tech pneumatic toilet plungers that are powered by a small CO2 cartridge.
Pull the trigger, and the entire cartridge is unloaded in one massive blast to hopefully force out whatever is down there, but there is just one small catch. That catch is if the obstruction is insurmountable, then the entire contents of the toilet can be blown backward up into your face.
Is it time to start calling plumbers in Pittsburgh PA?
If you have had the entire contents of a toilet blown into your face, then of course, yes, it’s for sure time to call in a reputable Pittsburgh plumber like Kwiatowski Plumbing at 412-681-9525 and let them take over where you left off.
But even before you have the brainstorm to give one of these Hi-Tech pneumatic powered plungers a try, you perhaps may have concluded that removing the clog from a commercial toilet is no glamour job. This for sure holds true in the case of a repetitive clogged that requires the removal of the toilet itself to retrieve whatever is stuck inside of it.
Unclogging toilets is a job that’s better left to qualified Pittsburgh plumbers who have the experience, the tools, and for sure a nice pair of heavy-duty elbow-length rubber gloves.