You’re standing there. The water level rises… and rises… and doesn’t go down. Then it overflows onto the bathroom floor. And you wonder: what did I flush that caused this?
Sometimes a plunger clears the clog. Sometimes the clog is too big or too far down the line. Time to call an emergency plumber. To save yourself the trip, here’s what should never enter your toilet bowl in the first place.
Why Can’t I Flush It?
Your toilet is not a trash can. The public toilet you use isn’t one either. Toilets are designed for three things: Pee, Poo, and Toilet Paper. That’s the limit of what your local sewer treatment plant or your septic system can handle.
Everything you flush eventually passes through filters. The liquid gets treated with chemicals or UV light and travels to groundwater or oceans. Septic systems are even more delicate — they rely on a balance of specialized bacteria to clean wastewater before it flows into your septic field.
The Top 10 Items That Don’t Belong
- Paper towels. Not designed to be flushed. Don’t decompose properly. Paper towels into the trash, every time.
- Facial tissues (Kleenex). Soft and convenient when the TP runs out, but they have the same problem as paper towels — they don’t break down at the treatment plant.
- "Flushable" wipes, baby wipes, makeup wipes. Don’t believe the marketing. A wipe that holds together while you’re using it isn’t going to magically dissolve in the sewer line.
- Tampons, pads, and incontinence pads. Designed to absorb and hold liquids. Synthetic fibers, plastic fibers, and absorbent gels don’t belong in the sewer.
- Diapers. Even if you can flush one, you should never. Water-absorbent fibers and plastic coatings will trigger a phone call to the plumber.
- Q-tips, cotton balls, dental floss. Small things add up. They catch on rough patches in pipes and grow into clogs over time.
- Condoms and dental dams. Latex, polyurethane, and nitrile aren’t going to break down. They’re literally designed to stop fluids from passing through.
- Hair. Hair is keratin — a porous protein with little scales on the cuticle that bind to itself and to other debris. It’s the start of nearly every drain clog.
- Medications and pills. Once dissolved, drug compounds can’t be filtered out by treatment plants. They harm aquatic life. Take old meds to a pharmacy take-back, not the toilet.
- Food and cooking grease. Tempting if you don’t want it in the trash. Don’t. Food and grease congeal as they cool and stick to other things along the way — they’re a leading cause of sewer backups.
Already Backed Up?
It happens. Maybe the pet sitter dumped the kitty litter, maybe a curious kid was testing how many flushes a Matchbox car needs, maybe you just moved into a home with a previous owner’s mystery flush habits.
Stollwerck Plumbing & Sewer handles emergency plumbing across the Greater Mukilteo / Everett area. Call us at 425-374-3909 and we’ll get you on the schedule.