How to Unclog a Toilet Without Making a Mess

If you don't know how to unclog a toilet, you're not alone. Many people have never been taught how to use a plunger on a toilet and do it effectively without making a mess. It's is a necessary task that, more often than not, ends up in a wet, sloppy mess and gross plunger.

Fortunately, with the proper plunger and plunging technique, it's simple and easy. In this article and accompanying videos, we teach you how to select the right plunger for the job and how to to unclog your toilet quickly and easily without making a mess of yourself or your bathroom!

UltraSanitary Dripless Toilet Plunger over toilet

Step 1: Plunger Selection

You'll want to make sure you have the correct type of plunger before you ever have a clog. This will save you a lot of time and frustration. There's often a lot of confusion. Take this step before you ever have a clogged toilet and make sure you have a toilet plunger and not just a sink plunger. You might be able to release a clog with a sink plunger, but it probably won’t be easy and not without making a huge mess. Here’s how to tell the difference…

Sink plungers have a dome shaped cup with a handle attached to the concave side and a wide lip around the perimeter of the opposite side. The wide lip is designed to seal around the drain, against the bottom of a sink, bathtub or shower as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Sink Plunger - wide lip around plunger cup is designed to seal against sinks, showers and tub drains.

Toilet plunger plungers are sometimes referred to as “flange plungers” because they have a flange that extends from the rubber cup (also known as the force cup). The flange is designed to slip into the drain of the toilet bowl and help create a seal while plunging as shown in Figure 2. The flange can also be folded inside of the force cup, so the same plunger can be used to unclog toilets, sinks, bathtubs and showers.

UltraSanitary Plunger with black cup and flange

Figure 2: UltraSanitary plunger with flange, designed to slip into toilet bowl drain.

Step 2: Adjust Water Level

Before you start to unclog yoru toilet, you want to make sure that you have enough water in the toilet bowl to flush the debris down the drain once the clog is released. If the water level doesn’t come over the top of the force cup, you need to add water to the toilet bowl. If the water is really low and barely filling the drain, you can simply flush the toilet again to fill the bowl. If there’s some water in the bowl, but not quite enough to cover the force cup, the best thing to do is to use a pitcher or bucket to add additional water so you don’t risk overflowing the toilet.

Figure 3: Water level in this toilet is too low to effectively unclog the toilet.

Step 3: Unclog Toilet Without Making Waves

I’ve plunged hundreds of toilets while developing the UltraSanitary toilet plunger. I’ve used a variety of techniques and the following is the easiest, cleanest way to plunge and the best chance at keeping a clean bathrrom.
When you lower the plunger into the water, hold the handle of the plunger at an angle so that water can enter the force cup and displace some of the air inside of it (Figure 5). If you lower the plunger straight down, a lot of air will be trapped inside of the force cup and your initial plunge won’t be as effective. Or worse, it could release a large air bubble and cause a wave that spills over the toilet bowl (Figure 4).
Maneuver the plunger until the flange of the force cup slips into the drain of the bowl.
Firmly push the plunger handle to cause the force cup to seal against toilet bowl, and then quickly force the handle downward towards the drain with enough force to compress the cup. Slowly remove pressure from the handle so that the force cup pops back into its original shape. One forceful plunge is often enough to unclog a toilet. If not, repeat the process one or more times until the clog is released.
I’ve seen others plunge a toilet frantically, like they were trying to “churn butter” and that approach usually causes the water to splash and sometimes run over the side of the rim making a big mess, which is why I prefer my technique.
I demonstrate all of this in a video titled How to Unclog a Toilet Without Making a Mess.

Figure 4: Large air bubbles trapped in the force cup are released during plunging, creating waves that causes overflow onto the rim and floor.

Figure 5: Inserting the plunger at an angle allows some water to enter the force cup and reduces the size of the bubble but doesn't eliminate it.

Besides maintaining a clean plunger, another benefit of the UltraSanitary Plunger it the Grunge Guard Plunger Cover also eliminates the air bubble that causes the overflow! The innovative design eliminates the air bubble as shown in Figure 6, so there's no big wave when you unclog your toilet.

Figure 6: UltraSanitary eliminates the Dreaded Bubble. There's no overflow onto the rim or floor.

Figure 7: UltraSanitary stays clean and dry, doesn't drip onto the rim or floor, and protects the user from germs and contaminants

Step 4: How to Clean and Sanitize Your Plunger

This is a bigger topic that I’ll discuss in greater depth in my next post, but you’ll want to make sure properly clean and sanitize your toilet plunger. Of course, if you have the UltraSanitary Toilet Plunger, you won’t need to clean and sanitize because it never touches the water! See the Best Toilet Plunger (UltraSanitary Plunger) in action!