How to Unclog Your Toilet Without a Plunger TipHero

Maintaining the toilet is one of the grossest household jobs imaginable. For obvious reasons. Whether you’re fixing the toilet or just giving it a weekly clean, it is undoubtedly the least favorable of all your chores. But the worst situation you can come across in this already disgusting place? A clogged toilet. The grossest of the gross.

But what about this horrific situation: when the toilet is clogged and you don’t have a plunger on hand? To terrible to imagine, right? Well, it’s actually possible to fixed your crappy conundrum without this bathroom necessity.

If you’re faced with a clogged toilet and you don’t have a plunger (or if don’t want to use a plunger because it’s too yucky) try this trick from Brit at Build TV. It’s not guaranteed to work every time but people have written in saying it’s worked for them on numerous occasions. In this case in particular (although it was staged, technically) this method got rid of a very large wad of paper towels, which gives us hope that this technique can handles some of your worst clogging situations. It’s also worth noting that although in the video below Brit uses dish soap but others have said liquid laundry detergent works even better.

Here’s what you’ll need and what you’ll need to do to get your toilet running smoothly again.

Materials

Liquid Dish Soap — Save on liquid dish soap: get it online here now!

Directions

Pour a healthy amount of liquid soap into your toilet bowl, about half a cup. The soap is denser and heavier than water and should drop to the bottom of the bowl. Let the liquid dish soap sit in the bowl for 20-30 minutes. Over time the soap will seep into the clog lubricating the trap way. After 20 minutes fill up a container with hot water and pour it into the bowl. Make sure not to overflow the toilet bowl. Slowly the clog should work it’s way free.

The entire time for the project takes about a half hour, and that includes the 20 minutes you should wait to let the bowl clear up again. So, for physical work, it should require about 10 minutes of your time. Considering that it takes people often close to a half hour of intense plunging with a more traditional method, this is obviously a pretty simple method.

This does not work for all clogs but people have reported success by repeating steps 1-3 again if it doesn’t clear the clog the first time. Some said they did this at night and the clog was gone in the morning. And being able to fix a clog without being elbow-deep in toilet water? That is well worth giving this trick a try.

If you’re out of the cleaning products needed, we would also suggest this technique, which involves using a toilet brush wrapped in a plastic bag. With these two simple things, you can create a makeshift plunger in no time at all.

Do you have any tips or tricks for clearing a clog? Tell us in the comments.