Blocked Toilet, Cleared Today
Overflowing, not flushing, or filling up and draining away slowly. Ring us any hour and you’ll speak to Angelo, not a call centre. Licensed plumber on site fast, with a clear price before we start.
Licence No. 299307c · Licensed & insured in NSW · No call-out fee · 24 hours, 7 days
★★★★★ 5.0 from 50 Google reviews
Serving Sydney since 2016 · Independent and locally owned, no franchise fees · Pensioner discounts
Rather We Called You?
Send your details and Angelo will ring you back. If the toilet is overflowing right now, ring 0434 410 612 instead, it’s faster.
Licensed & insured, Licence No. 299307c · No call-out fee
Is It Just the Toilet, or the Whole Line?
This is the first thing worth working out, because it changes what needs doing and what it costs. Go and run a tap in the bathroom basin, then flush the shower or the laundry if you can.
Only the toilet is affected
Everything else drains normally and only the pan fills and sits there. That is usually a blockage in the toilet itself or in the short branch of pipe behind it. Most of the time that’s something lodged in the trap: wipes, a nappy, a toy, cotton buds, a build-up of paper. We clear those on the spot.
The toilet and other fixtures are both affected
The shower gurgles when you flush. The basin is slow. Water comes up in the shower base or at the gully outside. That is not a toilet problem, it is a blockage further down in the main sewer line, and the toilet is simply the lowest point in the house so it shows first.
That matters because plunging a toilet when the sewer line is blocked achieves nothing, and running more water through it pushes sewage closer to coming up inside the house. Ring us instead.
Sewage coming up the overflow outside
Most Sydney properties have an overflow relief gully, a round grate at ground level near the house. It is designed to let sewage escape outside rather than inside. If it is overflowing, the system is doing its job and the line is fully blocked. Stop using water in the house and ring us.
Before You Plunge It Again
A plunger is worth one honest go on a toilet that is blocked on its own. Beyond that, a few things make it worse rather than better.
- Don’t keep flushing to see if it has cleared. Each flush adds nine litres to a pan that is already full. That is how a blocked toilet becomes a flooded bathroom floor.
- Don’t pour drain cleaner into a toilet. Caustic products are made for sinks and basins. In a toilet they sit in the trap in a pool of water, barely diluted, and they will damage the seals and the pan. If we then have to work on it, someone is reaching into caustic water.
- Don’t push a wire coat hanger around the pan. Ceramic chips and scratches, and a scratched pan stains permanently. It is also a good way to push an object from somewhere we could retrieve it to somewhere we cannot.
- Don’t hire a drain machine for a toilet. An eel fed through a toilet pan can crack the trap. That turns a clearing job into replacing the toilet.
If one plunge and one flush has not fixed it, it is not going to fix itself.
Toilet Overflowing Right Now?
Turn the tap off at the wall behind the toilet, stop using water in the house, and ring us.
How We Clear a Blocked Toilet
We work out where the blockage is first
Same test as above, done properly. If other fixtures are involved we go straight to the sewer line rather than wasting your money working on the toilet.
Clearing the pan and the branch
For a blockage in the toilet itself we use a closet auger, which is a tool made for toilet traps and will not chip the ceramic. If something is lodged rather than built up, we retrieve it rather than pushing it further along, because an object pushed into the sewer line becomes a bigger job later.
Clearing the main line
If the blockage is downstream, we open the inspection point and clear the line with high pressure water jetting. That cuts through roots, scours fat off the pipe wall and flushes it out, rather than punching a hole through the middle of the blockage so it closes up again in a fortnight.
Camera down the line afterwards
We put a CCTV camera down and show you what we find. On a toilet that has blocked once and had something in it, that is the end of it. On a line that has blocked before, the camera almost always shows why: roots through a cracked joint, a sagging section holding water, or a pipe that has partly collapsed.
Then we tell you where you stand
Either it is cleared and nothing more is needed, which is most jobs, or there is damage and you need to decide what to do about it. We’ll quote the repair before any further work, and you can take the quote away and think about it.
Why Toilets Block
Wet wipes
The single most common cause we see, including the ones labelled flushable. They do not break down like paper. They catch on anything slightly rough inside the pipe and then everything else catches on them.
Too much paper, or the wrong paper
Common in houses with young children. Also an issue with thick quilted paper in older pipework.
Objects
Toys, toothbrushes, phone cases, cleaning blocks that have come loose from the rim. Anything that fits down the pan will lodge in the trap.
Nappies and sanitary products
These swell. A nappy that goes down will not come back up without a tool.
Tree roots in the line past the toilet
If the toilet blocks every few months and clears for a while after, it is almost never the toilet. Roots find the pipe through a cracked joint, grow into a mass, and catch everything that passes.
A sagging or broken pipe
Older clay pipework moves as the ground moves. A section that has dropped holds water and solids instead of carrying them away, and that becomes the spot everything blocks at.
When a Blocked Toilet Is Something Bigger
If you are ringing a plumber about the same toilet more than once a year, clearing it again is not the answer. Something is wrong with the pipe.
We camera the line, find the damaged section, and quote you on repairing it. In most cases that is pipe relining, where a new pipe is formed inside the old one and cured in place, so there is no digging up the lawn, the driveway or the bathroom floor. It fixes the cause rather than the symptom, and it is usually cheaper than excavating.
What we will not do is keep taking your money to clear the same blockage while saying nothing about why it keeps happening.
Clear Pricing, No Surprises
No call-out fee. We look at the job, tell you what it will cost, and you decide before we start. If a camera inspection or a repair is needed, that is quoted separately and you are free to say no.
Pensioner discounts apply. We are independent and locally owned, so there are no franchise fees built into the price and no head office telling us what to charge.
Blocked Toilet Service Across Sydney
We cover the Inner West, the Lower North Shore, the Upper North Shore and the St George and Canterbury-Bankstown areas, including Abbotsford, Bexley, Burwood, Concord, Croydon, Drummoyne, Gladesville, Hunters Hill, Lane Cove, Mosman, North Sydney, Pymble, Ryde, Strathfield, Turramurra, Wahroonga and Willoughby.
If you are not sure whether you are in our area, ring and ask. It takes ten seconds and we will tell you honestly either way.
Blocked Toilet Questions
How quickly can you get here?
For a toilet that is overflowing or the only toilet in the house, as fast as we can, any hour. Ring and we’ll tell you a real time rather than a comfortable one.
Do you charge a call-out fee?
No. You get a price for the work before we start it.
My toilet is slow but not fully blocked. Can it wait?
A slow toilet is a partial blockage and it generally gets worse, not better. It can usually wait until morning, but it will not wait a month.
Why does my toilet keep blocking?
If it is the same toilet repeatedly, the likeliest answers are tree roots in the line, a sagging or cracked section of pipe, or wipes going down. A camera inspection tells you which, rather than guessing.
Will you damage the toilet getting it clear?
We use a closet auger made for toilet traps, not an eel or a wire. If something is lodged we retrieve it rather than force it through.
Can I use a chemical drain cleaner in a toilet first?
We would rather you didn’t. It sits in the trap barely diluted, it can damage the pan and the seals, and it makes the job hazardous for whoever works on it next.
The whole house is draining slowly, is that the toilet?
No. If every fixture is slow at once it is the main sewer line, and the toilet is just where it shows first because it sits lowest.
Do I get to see the camera footage?
Yes. You should see what you are paying for, especially if we are telling you a pipe needs repairing.
Are you licensed?
Yes. Licence No. 299307c, licensed and insured in NSW.
Do you work weekends and public holidays?
24 hours, 7 days, all year.
Blocked Toilets Cleared, Sydney Wide
Licence 299307c · 5.0 from 50 reviews · Serving Sydney since 2016