What To Do After Your Toilet Overflows

3/10/2022 (Permalink)

When Your Toilet Overflows, What Should You Do?

It can happen in an instant. You flush the toilet, and without warning, it backs up and overflows onto the bathroom floor of your South Whittier, CA. If you’re lucky, a flooded toilet is all you have to worry about. If you’re not so lucky, sewer damage may spread to other rooms and, in a worst-case scenario, the entire basement. Your first call should be to a plumber to stop the backup, followed by another call to a sewage company that can help you begin immediate cleanup and restoration.

What Not To Flush

Sewer backups seemingly come out of the blue, and nobody is ever really prepared for one. To help prevent a blocked sewer line, never flush items such as:

• Cotton balls or Q-tips
  
• Feminine products
  
• Baby wipes
  
• Paper towels
  
• Cigarette butts
  
• Dental floss

These things may or may not cause a blockage by themselves, but they can accumulate and block the toilet trap and pipes. Even too much toilet paper at one time can create or add to a blockage and the resulting sewer damage.

Removing the Clog

A professional plumber may be able to break the clog with the help of a sewer “snake,” or auger line. These handy tools can reach up to 100 feet in length to dislodge whatever is causing the clog. If a snake fails to resolve the problem, you’re likely going to need to reach the clog from outside, digging down to the line through your yard. This is often the only way to repair a line that is blocked by roots from a tree planted too close to the sewer line.

Cleanup and Restoration

Sewage is obviously full of contaminants and requires special cleanup and disposal of contaminated items, which may include flooring, baseboards, drywall and insulation. If you have a flooded toilet in your South Whittier, CA, home, contact a sewage company with restoration expertise that can help you assess the sewer damage, remove affected surfaces and clean and sanitize items that are salvageable.