Plumbing 101

Reverend_Chaos

I am relatively certain that my daughter put a hairspray cap in the toilet and flushed it down the toilet a few days ago.

So my toilet will no longer flush, however it is not completely blocked, as I can plunger it and force water through. I have tried many things, bought a better plunger, tried a chemical plunger, I even bought a snake. I can't get the snake through the S curve in the back of the toilet though.

Any helpful ideas before I throw in the towel and call the plumber?

strakha_7

Don't keep plunging it, you might cause terminal stress on the pipe! (Like, explosive terminal stress)

You may have a little angle piece sticking out on the far side of the S bend? Try that.

If there isn't one, and the guy who installed your plumbing wasn't a tool, you could take apart the S-bend and go at it that way. Make sure to have a bucket underneath as you try this. You need a big ol' pair of pump pliers for this (though theoretically hand strength is all that's required with plumbing). When you re-attach it don't overdo it, you might need to take it apart someday.

But yeah that's it. Plumbers are sneaky dudes with those snakes, I had a similar problem where I actually pushed an obstruction way past where I could snake it anymore

OhtheVogonity

Hmm.

Well, you could shut of all the water going into the toilet, flush it until there's no water in the tank, and generally do your best to completely empty the toilet of water. Then you could loosen the bolts at the base and lift it off the wax ring. This would perhaps give you a shot at dislodging the cap from the other end of the bend.

Mind you, I haven't done that before, but I have worked with plumbing. Despite best efforts to drain it and flush the system it might be poopy and leak poo water. But if I really didn't not want to call a plumber or buy/rent appropriate(expensive) tools, that's what I would do.

fuelish

Yep. You are going to have to pull the toilet. No biggie, like it says above, just drain the tank and remove the two screws holding the toilet down. You will need to replace the wax ring when you reinstall the toilet.

There is a good chance the cap is caught in the bend because the pipe itself is around 6" and something that small should just head out to the main if it can get past the bend. So you might need to use the snake on the toilet. Try it from the outlet side and see if you can shove it back in to the bowl.

Also, be careful because you have used drain cleaner there may be some where you are putting your hands. Use some gloves and eye protection. (And don't use drain cleaner on the toilet, sez so on the bottle)