Home Sweet Home

Aren’t we lucky? Our sincerest wish for our readers is that you never need to try your hand at it. But some of you may live in one of the older blocks of flats where the plumbing has not been updated, or in a house where the plumbing still has to be updated. Most of you are more likely to use a plunger forcleaning a blocked drain in a shower. Read on — the same principles apply.

You WILL NEED

• A plunger
• Long piece of flexible but sturdy wire
• A solid resolve to not puke
• A clothes-peg (for your nose)
• Just the tiniest bit of elbow grease.

DOING THE JOB

The most important thing to remember when you are faced with a blocked toilet to fight the impulse to flush. Flushing will probably lead to overflowing — which wil then extend the you will need’ list to include a bucket and a mop.

It may be a good idea to first check the inspection chamber which is usually it the backyard. (If you live in a complex or block of flats ask for help to locate this., If it is surrounded by wet, smelly, suspicious-looking stuff, phone your landlorc or a plumber. All the plunging in the world is not going to fix your toilet. If it look: fine, read on.

With the clothes peg firmly in place, carefully push the wire down the toilet bow to try to break up the obstruction. Do this with some resolve. Remove the wire anc push the plunger down the toilet until it seals with the bowl outlet. Firmly push down a couple of times, trying to not break the air seal. This should do the trick Now flush. Pour yourself a stiff drink.

Blocked Drains (Inside the House!)

This is not an uncommon occurrence at all. With bits of hair, vegetables and other food like debris being rinsed away, something is bound to get clogged up some where along the way. Have you any idea how many hairs the average person lose every year? Fortunately whoever designed the trap (funny looking u-shaped piper below basins), has made life fairly easy for us. You might even find a couple of ear rings in that secret little chamber …

You WILL NEED

• Plunger
•  Wire
• Industrial-strength gloves
• Bucket

• Spanner

DOING THE JOB

For the bath and the shower, open the taps and run some water into the bath or shower to help along the debris. A few hard pushes with your handy plunge’ should do the job. Should the plunger actually pull up some gunk from the pipes remove that by hand and discard, otherwise you may just push an obstruction further down the pipe without really dislodging it.

Remember to cover the overflow in the basin and bath with a wet cloth to avoid air coming in. If plunging does not take care of the problem, shape a little hook at the end of the wire and prod around to dislodge any blockages or fish out clumps of hair. There are also numerous drain-cleaning chemicals available to make this task a little easier. However, this method is not always fool-proof, especially in the kitchen sink as some strange substances are often rinsed down and then get blocked in the trap chamber. If you resort to chemicals, make absolutely sure that you do not have a septic tank, as chemicals will destroy the bacteria responsible for breaking up whatever you flush in there and then you may have a really big problem.

If the problem-drain is in the basin, place a bucket under the trap and armed with your spanner and a pair of gloves, unscrew the locking collars on either side. Remove it, ensuring that water and gunk are deposited in the bucket. Take it outside and clean it thoroughly. Then with your gloves firmly covering your delicate hands, use said delicate hands or a wire to ensure that there are no remaining blockages in the rest of the pipe. With the trap in place, screw on the locking collars. In the event of anything snapping, cracking or breaking, take the relevant bits to the hardware store to find replacements.

Changing a toilet roll

Yes folks, believe it or not, but this, too, seems to have become something of a lost art. We have microwave ovens that think, thermostats that adjust automatically and even toilet seats that clean themselves, but that fateful toilet roll still needs some human intervention when on the last ply.

You WILL NEED

• Two hands
• Toilet roll
• Bin

DOING THE JOB

Gently ease the empty toilet roll from the holder. Slip full toilet roll over holder, with first sheet facing downward in the front, and replace the holder. Throw empty roll in bin.

Cleaning Toilet

There are more cleaning products with more claims of making any kind of dirt miraculously disappear than you can imagine. They’ve become quite expensive and sometimes, just sometimes, don’t work quite as well as the claims on the bottles and tins would lead you to believe. So why don’t you try some of these suggestions. They’re all old-school, tried and tested over generations. All the products are available either from a supermarket or a hardware store.

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)
Plunging a Toilet, Thanks to modern plumbing, plunging a toilet is becoming a lost art!

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