Toilet Paper Infarction
Rough old pipes and exuberant toilet papery
|
When a toilet blocks up, it is because the sturdiest material available is blocking the drain, somewhere. The material might be really impacted feces, but it is probably a huge wad of toilet paper. |
Toilet paper eventually dissolves, though it may make a solid plug for an hour or so. Worst case, it dries and forms a permeable plug somewhere down the pipe, and must be cleared out with a snake. But hourly flushes should eventually wear it out.
The cure is using less toilet paper. If you need to use a lot, use a second or third flush. More than about six squares is more likely to block the toilet.
All you have working for you in a toilet is a few inches of pressure head- perhaps a few ounces per square foot, until the material is past the trap and moving down the pipe. That is hardly any pressure at all. And if the blockage is further down, it is more likely to be hammered down by a falling bolus of water though air than by the head of pressure that formed the impaction in the first place.