Blocked toilet: what to try before calling a plumber

How to tell if it's a simple clog

If the water rises high in the bowl after flushing and then drains away slowly over a minute or two, that is a classic clog in the toilet's own trap or the first stretch of pipe. It is almost always something solid caught in the S-bend, and it responds well to a plunger.

If the water doesn't move at all, gurgles, or backs up further when you flush, or if other fixtures nearby - a floor drain, the bath, a sink on a lower floor - start acting strangely at the same time, the problem is likely further down the line, not in the toilet itself. That points towards the shared stack rather than your flat.

Plunger: the first step, and usually enough

Use a plunger with a flanged rubber cup, the kind with a narrower extension that fits into the toilet outlet rather than a flat sink plunger. Make sure there is enough water in the bowl to cover the cup; top it up with a jug if needed so you're not just pushing air.

Push down slowly the first time to force air out and get a seal, then plunge with firm, steady strokes straight up and down, eight to ten at a time, keeping the seal unbroken. Pull up sharply on the last stroke - the pulling motion often shifts the blockage as much as the pushing does.

Give it a couple of rounds before giving up. Then flush, watching how it drains rather than tipping in more water. If it clears, run it again once or twice to check the blockage hasn't just moved a little further down.

If the plunger doesn't work: using a toilet auger

A toilet auger, also called a drain snake, is a flexible cable in a protective sleeve with a crank handle, sold cheaply in any hardware shop in Tallinn. It reaches further round the bend than a plunger can push and is built not to scratch the porcelain, which is why you should not use a plain wire coat hanger instead.

Feed the cable into the bowl and turn the handle clockwise as you push, gently, letting the tip find its own way round the trap rather than forcing it. When you feel resistance, keep turning slowly rather than shoving; that is usually the cable engaging with whatever is causing the blockage.

Once it feels like it has hooked or broken through, withdraw the cable slowly while still turning it, then flush. If the auger comes back with wet wipes or fibrous material wound round the tip, that confirms what caused the clog in the first place.

What should never go down the toilet

Almost every blocked toilet we're called out to trace back to something that was never meant to be flushed. Wet wipes are the biggest culprit even when the packet says «flushable» - they don't break down in water the way toilet paper does, and they catch on the smallest ridge in a pipe and build up from there.

The same goes for a short list of other things that seem harmless in the moment but cause exactly the same problem, either straight away or gradually over months.

• Wet wipes and baby wipes, including ones marked flushable
• Cat litter, even the kind sold as flushable
• Cooking fat and oil, which sets hard as it cools inside the pipe
• Cotton buds, dental floss, and sanitary products
• Nappies and paper towels
• Large amounts of paint, plaster, or sealant washed down the pan

When it's the building's stack, not your toilet

In Soviet-era panel buildings the soil stack often runs through several flats stacked directly on top of each other, sometimes with decades-old cast iron pipework that has narrowed with scale over the years. A blockage there affects everyone on that stack, not just the flat where it happens to show up first.

The tell-tale signs are a blockage that comes back within days of clearing it, a bad smell from the floor drain or from a neighbour's flat, or several flats on the same stack having trouble at once. In this case a plunger in your own bowl won't do anything useful, because the problem is metres away and out of reach.

This is a matter for the korteriühistu to arrange, usually with a proper drain-clearing machine run from an access point in the basement, and it is worth mentioning to your board or manager sooner rather than later - a stack blockage that is left tends to force its way out somewhere unpleasant.

When to call a plumber, and what it costs

Call a plumber once a plunger and an auger have both failed, if water is coming back up somewhere else in the flat, or if you suspect the problem sits in the building's shared stack rather than your own toilet. Trying to force a stubborn blockage further with more tools than you have often just pushes it somewhere harder to reach, or cracks the porcelain.

Plumbing call-outs for this kind of job start at 45 € per hour, and if the toilet itself turns out to need a new valve, seal, or flush mechanism rather than just clearing, toilet repair and fitting starts at 60 € per job. Either way you get an itemised invoice and 24 months' guarantee on the work carried out.

If the toilet is overflowing right now, shut off the water at the small valve behind or below the cistern, or at the main stopcock if you can't find it, before doing anything else. That buys you time to work without making a mess worse while you decide what's next.