Below is a real question sent in by a My Clogged Toilet visitor. If you have a toilet repair question, please feel free to ask....
Dan asked: Toilet does not flush right. Water slowly swirls in the bowl and does not go down like a regular flush should, it has been augered and I adjusted the water level in tank to highest level but to no avail. PLEASE HELP with a remedy.
THANKS
We responded: Thank you for visiting MyCloggedToilet.com today! We are sorry to hear about your plumbing problem, but hopefully we can help you get everything working again.
My guess would be that the auger actually pushed the clog further down your drain, breaking it up to an extent which is why you are seeing some water flow when flushed. This is a pretty common occurrence, especially with traditional toilet augers as they do not have a very efficient head for actually breaking up the debris. If this is the case, you do have a couple of options here.
First, and probably the easiest, would be to go out and either purchase or rent an auger with a longer reach. This would allow you to get further down the pipe and hopefully break up the clog. Most commercial type augers, will have a "cutting" type head that allows them to cut their way through the clog. This method while costly, would be the less work intensive.
Your other option would be to remove the toilet and use your auger directly in the floor drain allowing you a greater reach than you would have going through the toilet. You will notice a picture diagram on this page, http://mycloggedtoilet.com/how-to-unclog-a-clogged-toilet/ that will give you a better understanding of what a toilet auger looks like once inserted into your drain. You can see that the auger must snake its way through the bend, losing valuable distance along the way.
While I find the chances of this being your problem to be slim, you may also want to take a moment to verify that there is not to much slack in your flush handle chain. Open up your toilet tank and follow the chain that connects the handle to the flapper located at the base of the tank. This chain should be snug but not tight. If there is to much slack in the chain, it will cause the flapper to only open partially, resulting in an incomplete or nonexistent flush.
You may be interested in reading the following page as it does contain a number of good tips on using an auger. You can find that here http://mycloggedtoilet.com/how-to-use-a-toilet-auger/ Please let us know if you have any further questions, we will be happy to help.
You may enjoy these random highlights from advice and information found right here on the My Clogged Toilet website.
If you do not have a bunch of money to shell out to a professional then you will want to try to repair the toilet yourself.
The first thing that you will want to do is try to figure out what the cause of your toilet being stopped up is.
This should solve your problem and save you a lot of money on toilet repair.
There are a couple of terms that you will want to know before making your trip to the hardware store or purchasing your replacement parts online.