Dish soap, FTW

Sac Arrow

Sac Arrow

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Snorting his way across the USA
It was, about... mm, twenty years ago when I was smashing a toilet open in the front yard in order to retrieve a set of contacts and some saline solution. Exactly how they ended up there is... an adult now. Why I was smashing it open I don't know. It's not like I was going to actually use either object lodged in there. The new toilet was, technically, an upgrade over the OEM one installed originally in the house. I wouldn't say it worked great, but it worked.

Fast forward. Over the years, conditions began to deteriorate. I've replaced the float and flush valve once or twice, and earlier in the year, or, I don't know, maybe last year, I did a complete overhaul with new tank gaskets. I was just going to replace the flush lever and chain, but I had the whole kit so I figured like dude, let's just F'n do it. Good call because the tank gasket was mush.

Well, the thing, over time, became harder and harder to flush. It would increasingly clog. I would sometimes have to shut off the supply valve to prevent a mess. Liquid Plumber? Worthless. Those little enzyme stick thingies? Worthless.

Don't believe everything you read on the Internet. "Why you need to put dish soap in your toilet on a regular basis." The ads, you know. Well, one morning, I shut the fill valve off, and I was about to take care of business with the plunger, and thought.... Hmm, why not give it a try. Can't hurt right. So I retrieved the dish soap from the kitchen, and poured some in the about to overflow bowl, which was just clogged and stagnant.

Bam. A few seconds later, "whoosh!". Turned the water supply back on, put some more dish soap in, and I'll be damninated, but it worked like Kryptonite. Whoosh after whoosh. Sometimes double whooshes. No stagnation. No clog. It was truly a de-turd-gent.

Anyway, just passing it on. Yeah I know, I could have simply said "put dish soap in your toilet to prevent clogs or unclog it" but I don't roll that way.
 
Hand wash dish detergent or dishwasher detergent?
 
I'm grieving for all the plumbers that will be put out of work in these COVID wracked times as a result of this thread. :fingerwag:
 
Since we're taking about it.... I've found shampoo works very well, and you have a bottle of it in your bathroom. Unless it's a 1/2 bath, I guess. The key is a soap that will sink.

I'm a little embarrassed that I've done this enough to experiment with different types, but I've lived in houses with lousy (crappy?) toilets, and I really don't like to plunge. Buying better toilets is the real solution, though. There are plumbing forums that talk about toilets the way we do airplanes, and there's a surprising range in quality.

Last house had an old 5 gal. flush monster in it. Was sorely tempted to take it with me. Didn't even have a plunger in that bathroom.
 
One can spend the same amount of money trying to make an old toilet work as one would spend on a nice new one that works right. Some of the building supply websites give the specs on their various models, and you want to find one that has a high MaP rating. A rating of 1000 is dandy. It means that it was tested with artificial poops up to 1000 grams, or 2.2 pounds. That's a serious lump. Some cheaper toilets are rated at only 400. I've found the American Standard Cadet 3 to be the best performance for the money.

Like a lot of places, this town has water with a high mineral content. Calcium, magnesium and the like. That stuff slowly clogs the channel that runs around the bowl lip, and the small holes under it, slowing the flush velocity and making the toilet sluggish. You can bend a coat hanger and try to poke the mineral out of those holes, or run hydrochloric acid through the system after you empty the water out of the bowl, but in the end I just gave up on that sort of thing and bought new toilets. Hydrochloric acid costs money, too.

MaP ratings: https://www.map-testing.com/performance-toilets-testing/
 
Dan Thomas said:
......A rating of 1000 is dandy. It means that it was tested with artificial poops up to 1000 grams, or 2.2 pounds. That's a serious lump.
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Would you say those toilets were full of sh*t?
 
[QUOTE="Jim K, post: 3025575, member: 36848]There are plumbing forums that talk about toilets the way we do airplanes, and there's a surprising range in quality.[/QUOTE]
So what’s the toilet equivalent of a Bonanza?
 
You name it, there are people who are enthusiasts about it, willing to fill internet forums with thousands of posts. Some people seriously need to get a life, but I'm glad they exist... I remember trying to figure something out about a cellphone, this was in the days of flip phones, and I found a cellphone forum, people whose hobby is cellphones, people with tens of thousands of posts about cellphones, with long sig lines listing every cellphone they ever owned. Then there are the train and plane spotters, and people who put up websites indexing every numbered highway in a state...

Of course, making thousands of posts on POA or elsewhere about airplanes is perfectly understandable... ;)
 
After all these posts, I'm still unclear as to where I should put the Dawn detergent. In the bowl itself or the tank?
 
Dana said:
You name it, there are people who are enthusiasts about it, willing to fill internet forums with thousands of posts. Some people seriously need to get a life, but I'm glad they exist... I remember trying to figure something out about a cellphone, this was in the days of flip phones, and I found a cellphone forum, people whose hobby is cellphones, people with tens of thousands of posts about cellphones, with long sig lines listing every cellphone they ever owned. Then there are the train and plane spotters, and people who put up websites indexing every numbered highway in a state...

Of course, making thousands of posts on POA or elsewhere about airplanes is perfectly understandable... ;)
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There are sites for people obsessed with things like flashlights and campstoves, too. And dumpster diving.
 
MauleSkinner said:
Prevents clogs there, too, I assume.
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I can always tell when the grocery store cafe has not bothered to rinse out the soap from the coffee urns. The coffee tastes like soap and my bowels quickly become very.... unclogged.
 
jsstevens said:
So what’s the toilet equivalent of a Bonanza?
Click to expand...

My last purchase was a Toto Drake. Pretty good. Haven't had to plunge it, which i can't say about the American Standard Cadet I put in my last house. The AS self cleaned a little better though I think, although all the low flow units struggle with that. The old 5gal was always spotless.

If you want to learn more about toilets than you knew there was to know: https://terrylove.com/crtoilet.htm. He has a forum, too, if you have plumbing questions....
 
Sac Arrow said:
I can always tell when the grocery store cafe has not bothered to rinse out the soap from the coffee urns. The coffee tastes like soap and my bowels quickly become very.... unclogged.
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Reminds of the time I washed out the deployment coffer pot after 3 or so months because they told me to do it. :D:D I told them I don't drink coffee. They said to do it any way. For some reason they complained a lot about it being clean.
 
flhrci said:
Reminds of the time I washed out the deployment coffer pot after 3 or so months because they told me to do it. :D:D I told them I don't drink coffee. They said to do it any way. For some reason they complained a lot about it being clean.
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I don't drink coffee either. I get asked to make coffee once, then for some reason I never get asked again...:lol::lol:
 
Zeldman said:
I don't drink coffee either. I get asked to make coffee once, then for some reason I never get asked again...:lol::lol:
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I asked at the FSDO one time why the Commercial and ATP training requirements didn’t include making coffee, and why Flight Instructor training doesn’t include applying for food stamps.
 
Dawn gets grease out of the way plus other S***.
Friends wife had just died and his toilet in basement , (the only one she would let him use ) was flushing mighty slow.
We poured a full bottle in the bowl , Yep , two bottles as we did the upstairs one also.
He was one happy fellow .
As the Plumbers sign says... "A straight flush always beats a full house "

Speaking of Coffee pots , My CFI is also the Airport manager . He often leaves the coffee pot on till it is black skum , thick as nail polish.
I did a scrub with a wire brush and paper towel but didn't use any soap. He was out with another student at the time .
When he came back and saw the clean ,sparkly , shiney coffee pot . His only comment was , "I hope you didn't use soap on that ." :)
 
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